Destiny Doll Read Online Free PDF Page B

letters? And specifications for a special kind of robot?"
    "That would be something else again. If they were authentic."
    "There is no question about their authenticity. I've made sure of that."
    "And what do these letters say?"
    "That he was looking for something."
    "I've told you they all were looking for something. Every one of them. Some of them believed the things they were looking for are there. Some of them simply hypnotized themselves into believing it. That's the way it was in the old days, that's the way it is right now. These kind of people need some excuse for their eternal wandering. They need to graft some purpose to a purposeless existence. They're in love with space and all those new unknown worlds which lie out beyond the next horizon. There is no reason in the world why they should be batting around out there and they know this, so they concoct their reasons and . . ."
    "Captain, you don't believe a word of it?"
    "Not a word," I said.
    It was all right with me if she let these two adventurers lead her on a wild-goose chase, but I was not about to be a party to it. Although, remembering that ship standing out there on the landing field, I admit that I was tempted. But it was impossible, I knew. Earth was sanctuary and needed sanctuary.
    "You do not like me," Friar Tuck paid to me. "And I don't like you, either. But let me tell you, honestly, that I brought my blind companion to Miss Foster with no thought of monetary gain. I am past all need of monetary gain. All I seek is truth."
    I didn't answer him. Of what use would be an answer? I'd 'known his breed before.
    "I cannot see," said Smith, speaking not to us, not even to himself, but to some unknown person that no one knew about. "I have never seen. I know no shape except the shapes that my hands can tell me. I can envision objects in my imagination, but the vision must be wrong, for I do not know of colors, although I am told there is such a thing as color. Red means something to you, but it is meaningless to me. There is no way one can describe a color to a man who cannot see. The feel of texture, yes, but no way in the world to really know of texture. Water to drink, but what does water look like? Whiskey in a glass with ice, but what does whiskey look like? Ice is hard and smooth and has a feel I'm told is cold. It is water that has turned to crystals and I understand it's white, but what is crystal, what is white?
    "I have nothing of this world except the space it gives me and the thoughts of other people, but how am I to know that my interpretations of these thoughts are right? Or that, I can marshal facts correctly? I have little of this world, but I have another world." He lifted his hand and with his fingers tapped his skull. "Another world," he said, "here inside my head. Not an imagined world, but another world that's given me by another being. I do not know where this other being is,  although I've been made to know he is very distant from us. That is all I know for certain—the great distance that he lies and the direction of that distance."
    "So that is it," I said, looking at Sara. "He's to be the compass. We set out in the direction that he tells us and we keep on going . . ."
    'That is it," she said. "That was the way it was with Roscoe."
    "Knight's robot?"
    "Knight's robot. That's what the letters say. Knight had it himself—just a little of it. Just enough to know there was someone out there. So he had the robot fabricated."
    "A made-to-order robot? A telepathic robot?" She nodded. 
    It was hard to swallow. It was impossible. There was something going on here beyond all belief.
    "There is truth out there," said Tuck. "A truth we cannot even guess. I'm willing to bet my life to go out and see."
    "And that," I said, "is exactly what you would be doing. Even if you found the truth . . ."
    "If it's out there," Sara said, "someone, some time, will find it. Why can't it be us?"
    I looked around the room. The heads glared down at us, fantastic