The Recalcitrant

This golden day was pollen-scented, warmed by the mid-summer sun. Out in the garden the breeze was slight. And a great furred honeybee circled and dipped, touching the vivid azaleas, drinking the heart of the iris, and swiftly rising to the purple rhododendron cups. Dark green ivy twined the porch railing of the trim white cottage.

From behind the curtains of fragile glasseen Jim Simson peered out at his garden with caution and longing. He could almost feel the moist rich soil in his fingers, could almost smell the blossoms through the tight closed windows. In all weathers, on brilliant days and blue and silver nights, he and Amelia had worked the garden. Now the hours of planting and tending were done.

He raised haunted eyes to the hills beyond. Between the young pines on the sweet sloped breasts he could see the pale thread of road. Momentarily, where a curve brought it into view, the sun glinted on the metal helicar that moved purposefully toward him.

They'll be here in an hour, he thought. And then they'll take and destroy what I am. And I'll lose Amelia forever.

That was the thing he could not bear. Worse than torment it seemed, worse than destruction itself.

In agony he turned. The cool comfort of his house made fantastic the knowledge within him. There in the corner stood the fine cherrywood desk he had made. Every bit of the polished dark furniture, every section had been sanded and grained and carved by his hands. And all the fabricing—rugs and pillows, delicate covers and hangings—all Amelia's handiwork.

They two, starting from bare black earth had built this home, foundations and beams, studs and floorboards, shingles and shutters, outside and in, their work, their love.

He thrust out his hands, and moved in blind panic to the arch of the kitchen.

Amelia looked up from the work table. The soft tan of sun was deep on her cheeks, and her clear green eyes kindled at sight of him.

"I'm up to the last bouquet," she smiled and indicated the straw basket that was full of neatly tied herbs ready for Jim to take to the market.

His long-drawn breath was a silent prayer: "Let me never forget the spice of this room, the morning light on her dark curled hair."

Then he groaned. With a stride he caught her warm curved body to him. In her hands the last bouquet was crushed between them, filling his nostrils with fragrance of thyme and mint and coriander leaves.

At last he held her away, his hands tight on her shoulders, bare and brown in the brief sundress.

"There are men coming for me," he said. "I've got to run and hide. They'll search, and wait, but eventually they'll leave. Then I'll come back. But we'll have to go away from here. We'll have to start again under other names, somewhere else."

Her anxious eyes searched his face. "Jim, what have you done?"

"Done? Why, I've done nothing," he said.

And that was true. It was not what he had done. It was what he was.

"I'll go with you, Darling. We'll hide together."

He shook his head. "It's not you they want. I'll have a better chance alone."

He lifted the basket of herbs. "When they come tell them I've just gone to the market."

"But where will you go?"

"Out to the hills. I'll come back when they're gone."

He kissed her quickly, and went out knowing she was standing at the back door threshold, straining to see him till he could no longer be seen....

There was a swift brook in the woods beyond his cultivated acres. Into it he scattered the herbs to be dispersed by the dancing water. The basket he broke in his strong brown hands and sent the pieces after the flowers. Then he took off his shoes, cuffed his pants to his knees and waded across the brook to the other side.

Pine nettles and small twigs gave under his stride. He never felt the pain of angled stones where he trod. He walked a long time, without stopping, and his breath did not become labored though his path was always upward.

When he reached the clear crest of the hill he looked down to the patchwork valley where he lived. He saw his house, a green-topped miniature fashioned like a jewel in the pastoral setting.

But the flaw in the jewel was the ominous helicar at the gate of the house.

He sat in the tall grass, pulling his knees up to his chest. He clasped his hands about his legs, and prepared himself for the long vigil ahead.

The sky became colored with sunset tints. He saw all the beauty without lifting his head. Cool breezes of dusk blew upon him. The sky became darker; the moon increased in brilliance. In the moonlight the metal car was silvered. During all the hours he had watched not one figure had emerged from the house. In a waiting game they were persistent and tireless.

He rose at last, and stretched. He saw his hands before him, taught and strong, finely formed. On impulse he rubbed his chin, touched his cheek. How smooth and hard the flesh, how bronzed his powerful body.

Suddenly he raised himself, stretching as high as he could, feeling the pull of well coordinated muscles. He smiled almost joyfully. His was a body to prize.

He whirled and started to run noiselessly, and without hurry over the tabled clearing. Where the terrain sloped he did not brake his speed, and momentum carried him faster down among the slim white birches, and fragrant firs.

He ran like a football player, in and out among the trees, leaping boulders and small streams, or plunging recklessly into crystal cold waters.

Where else was there another such as he—to run and run, and never tire? To dodge and twist, and speed over rough stones with no pain lancing up through him?

Was it his strength they feared?

"They'll never catch me," he vowed.

Then he went back up the sloping hill to his post at the crest.

The helicar was no longer standing in the road, and the lights of his house had ceased to shine. Only the moon flushed out shadows of the trees, and his silent dwelling.

They are gone, he thought.

The easy victory surprised him, and he wanted to sing for the relief of it. More quickly now than he had run in his prideful ascent of the slope he turned his steps homeward.

At the back door Amelia was waiting. In the night wind her skirt fluttered, and tendrils of blue-black hair whipped back.

"Jim," her lips were black moonlight, and her eyes shone with bright anguish. "Jim. Why did you come back?"

And then, behind her, he saw the armed men in their leather belted uniforms. Before he could retreat their searchbeams impaled him.

"Stand, Jim Simson!"

All hope of escape was gone.

They came to either side of him, stun weapons levelled, and led him to the shadows of the house where they had hidden their helicar.

He tried to turn to see Amelia as they forced him to walk between them to the back seat of the car.

She was lovely, and lonely in the moonlight, a figure lost and bewildered. How he wished he could go back, and crush her in his arms again.

Hours later, in the subdued glow of the office of United Medics, he cried:

"Why can't you let me alone? Why can't you forget about me? I changed my name. I concealed myself—a farmer among farmers. Why did you hunt me down?"

To the right of the door stood the two guards who had brought him. Their faces were impassive, as was the face of the man at the desk, the man named Dr. Crawsin.

He asked Jim: "Why didn't you answer our letters requesting you to present yourself for this interview. Why did you make it necessary for us to use force?"

"Did you really expect me to come here voluntarily—to be destroyed!"

"Destroy is, I think, an ill-chosen word, Roger—er—" he glanced at the record open on his desk, "Jim Simson, as you renamed yourself. We use a different term—reconverted."

Jim's mouth twisted: "And," he added bitterly, "after you've 'reconverted' me, what will become of Amelia, my wife?"

Again the doctor glanced at his record, "Ah, yes, your wife. You've been married—"

"Twenty years."

"Twenty years," the doctor mused. A flicker of interest came into his eyes, "And in these years did you ever tell her? Or hint?"

"No!" he rose with a shout. The guards leveled their guns. After a moment Jim sank back to his seat. "Amelia doesn't know." His voice was dull. "She thinks I'm just like her. It's better that way."

The doctor's voice softened: "Didn't she ever wonder why you never had children?"

"Wonder? Of course. At first. But I saw to it that she was kept too busy to care." Pride came into his tone. "We built our home ourselves, up from the ground. Made everything in it. Tilled our acres of land."

His eyes gleamed, and it was almost with spite that he said: "Can you do that? Can you go without food? Can you go without sleep? Can you work without tiring? Can you cut yourself and not feel pain? And heal yourself?"

Triumph made Jim's throat swell. He wanted to reach across and lift the other in his arms, just to show what strength he had, how wonderfully powered he was. "Look at me. How old would you say I was?"

Was there envy in the doctor's eyes? "Twenty-five, I'd say. If I didn't know you were forty, as the records show."

"And you, Doctor, must be seven or eight years younger. Look at yourself. Tired lines, gray at the temple—your body a prey to disease, and to aches. Doesn't it make you jealous that I am what I am, and you what you are?"

The doctor got up abruptly and motioned to the guards. Jim rose, protesting frantically as they closed in, and took his arms.

"You are jealous! That's why you want to destroy me. Jealous! Jealous!"

"Jealous, Jim Simson? Hardly." The doctor smiled pityingly just before the guards led Jim away. "You see, I have two children."

They stripped him in a small closed room, and prepared him for the irrevocably final step. They put him on a rolling stretcher, strapping him down at his chest, legs and arms. The bright narrow ceiling sailed over him.

They wheeled him into a large amphitheatre with blue-white lights. White garbed figures swam into view, their faces masked. One bent over him.

"Hello, Roger MacComb."

He stared into keen blue eyes. "Dr. Tiel!" He recognized the man, and a great relief surged through him. He lowered his voice confidentially: "Stop them, Doctor. They want to reconvert me."

"Of course," the doctor said. "Didn't I promise it to you—twenty years ago? Surely, you haven't forgotten my promise?"

"Forgotten?" Bitterly, he recalled that other time. Then, as now, he had been strapped to the operating table. But then he had been a poor shattered thing. Forgotten? He had never forgotten those frenzied pleas of years back: "Promise the change will only be temporary. Promise you'll find a way."

"Now," the doctor said: "I'm keeping that promise. We did find the way."

"Dr. Tiel." Jim's chest heaved, "I've changed my mind. I don't want reconversion. I want to be me—as I am now—as you made me!"

The masked man stared down at him. "They told me about this." His voice was almost sad. "They told me you were recalcitrant. I couldn't believe it."

"But it's true." His voice was only a whisper. "There's Amelia. I love her. What will happen to her?"

"Your wife? Why, she will be reassigned. There are other tasks—in our factories—our farms. Her memory of you and of your marriage will be erased. We aren't barbarians, you know."

"Not barbarians?" His laugh was raw. "Not cruel to force reconversion on me? And what about my memories? Can you erase them?"

"No, but you will adjust. You did before." His tone turned ironic. "You didn't call me cruel when your arms were gone, and your body shot to pieces. I was your saviour then, your healer. You couldn't thank me enough, or praise me. You—and all the men like you that I salvaged out of the Great War."

His eyes blazed at Jim. "Only half a million of you left. Half a million men out of a world of billions. I took those with minds and hearts and gave them new bodies. And almost all of them used those new bodies to work in my Body Parts Bank, helping me experiment and recreate the real thing. Except the few—like you—who ran to hide out on farms, in caves of the mountains, even in sailing boats.

"I even manufactured wives for you—moving, talking, mechanical dolls with memory tapes for minds—just to keep you from loneliness till the time when I found the way to give back the bodies you had lost. And now when I give you the chance for the greatest gift—the chance to bear children, to repopulate our dying world—you hide! You reject it!"

Dr. Tiel ended on a thunderous note. He glared at Jim. Then made an angry imperious gesture.

From behind and above someone lowered an anaesthetic cone. Jim turned and twisted. He fought the straps. But inexorably they brought the cone down over his face. It muffled him so that his words came through, muted and broken:

"But I don't want to be human again. Please.... Please.... I don't want to be human...."

After a while his voice died. His wonderful android body gave a final twitch of protest. And then was still.