Counter-Clock World Read Online Free PDF Page B

doesn’t offend you.” He made his own voice more authoritative. “You know I seldom grant audiences to robots. A quirk, perhaps, but one concerning which I am notoriously consistent.”
    “Until now,” the robot Carl Junior murmured; it retrieved its card and placed it back in its wallet, a thrifty, robotish move. Then, seating itself, it began to unzip its briefcase. “Being in charge of Section B of the Library, you are of course an expert on the Hobart Phase. At least so Mr. Gantrix assumes. Is he correct, sir?” The robot glanced up keenly.
    “Well, I deal with it constantly.” Appleford affected a vacant, cavalier tone; it was always better to show a superior attitude when dealing with a roby. Constantly necessary to remind them in this particular fashion—as well as in countless others—of their place.
    “So Mr. Gantrix realizes. And it is to his everlasting credit that via such a profound realization he had inferred that you have, over the years, become something of an authority on the advantages, sir, the uses and also manifold disadvantages, of the Hobart reverse- or anti-time field. True? Not true? Choose one.”
    Appleford pondered. “I choose the first. Although you must take into account the fact that my knowledge is pragmatic, not theoretical. But I can correctly deal with the vagaries of the Phase without being appalled. And it is appalling, Junior, the things that pop into being under the Phase. Such as the deaders. That really doesn’t appeal all that much to me; that, in my opinion, is one of the greater disadvantages. The rest of them I can stand.”
    “Certainly.” The roby Carl Junior nodded its thermoplastic, quite humanoid head. “Very good, Mr. Appleford. Now down to business. His Mightiness, the Very Honorable Ray Roberts, is preparing to come out here to the W.U.S., as you may have read in your morning ’pape. It will be a major public event, of course; that goes without saying. His Mightiness, who is in charge of the activities of Mr. Gantrix, has asked me to come to Section B of your Library and, if you will cooperate, sequester all manuscripts still extant dealing with the Anarch Peak. Will you cooperate? In exchange, Mr. Gantrix is willing to make a sizable donation to assist your Library in prospering in forthcoming years.”
    “That is indeed gratifying,” Appleford acknowledged, “but I’m afraid I would have to know
why
your principal wishes to sequester the documents pertaining to the Anarch.” He felt tense; something about the roby put his psychological defenses into operation.
    The roby rose to its metal feet; leaning forward, it deposited a host of documents on Appleford’s desk. “In answer to your query I respectfully insist you examine those.”
    Carl Gantrix, by means of the video circuit of the robot’s system, treated himself to a leisurely inspection of the assistant librarian Douglas Appleford as that individual plowed through the wearying stack of deliberately obscure pseudo-documents which the robot had presented.
    The bureaucrat in Appleford had been ensnared by the bait; his attention distracted, the librarian had become oblivious to the robot and to its actions. Therefore, as Appleford read, the robot expertly slid its chair back and to the left side, close to a reference card case of impressive proportions. Lengthening its right arm, the robot crept its manual grippers of fingeroid shape into the nearest file of the case; this Appleford did of course not see, and so the robot then continued with its assigned task. It placed a miniaturized nest of embryonic robots, no larger than pinheads, within the card file, then a tiny find-circuit transmitter behind a subsequent card, then at last a potent detonating device set on a three-day command circuit.
    Watching, Gantrix grinned. Only one construct remained in the robot’s possession, and this now appeared briefly as the robot, eyeing Appleford sideways and cautiously, edged its extensor once more