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Title: Perfect Companion
Author: John McGreevey
Illustrator: Ramon Raymond
Release date: April 30, 2021 [eBook #65200]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERFECT COMPANION ***
If the devil had been searching for a playmate,
this thing Craig had created would have been the
PERFECT COMPANION
By John McGreevey
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The thing was not large. About the size of a large dog. It lay on its
metallic side on the operating table, and it was alive. In its own way,
it lived ... because Craig Stevens had given it life.
Now, Craig stroked that metallic surface and smiled. "Very well,
Sheila," he said pleasantly. "Get out. Get out and never come back. I'm
not keeping you."
The woman who stood across the table from him uttered a choked,
strangled noise that could have been anger or sorrow. "I hate you. I
never thought that I could hate anyone, but you've taught me in these
last three years, Craig. You've taught me."
The other nodded and picked up a small battery from the table. "I'm
glad that our three years together haven't been a total loss, my dear."
Sheila dabbed at her eyes. "You don't even give me the satisfaction
of seeing you lose your temper. I wanted you to be uncomfortable and
embarrassed. I wanted to see you suffer as you've made me suffer."
"And so you tell me you're leaving me. Hardly the proper stimulus to
cause me to suffer, Sheila. A celebration would be more in order." His
grey eyes regarded her with the cold objectivity of a lab technician
observing the death agonies of a new species of insect.
Impulsively, she moved around the table to him. "Craig," she began, and
there was a note of entreaty in her voice, "what's happened to us?"
"Mental cruelty is the complaint you lodged, I believe." He didn't
look at her now, but focused his attention instead upon the mechanism
on the table. "Ridiculous phrase. The only real cruelty is mental of
course. Physical suffering soon passes, but suffering in the mind, that
endures."
She stared with loathing down at the thing on the table. "And now
this ... this monster that you've made ... I suppose you mean for it to
replace me in your life?"
Craig Stevens chuckled, "Nothing could take your place, Sheila. I shall
always remember you as a most individual subject."
Suddenly, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled herself to him.
"Listen to me, Craig," she begged. "You've got to listen. I can't leave
you like this. I need you. You need me. Let's try again. Maybe I was
wrong. Maybe you haven't meant to hurt me."
Carefully, he disentangled himself and pushed her gently away. "Your
luggage is packed, Sheila. You've made up your mind, and this is one
time you're not going to be allowed to change it. I don't need you. I
don't need anyone."
Her body shook with sobbing. "You loved me once."
* * * * *
He laughed, and the sound echoed from the cold stone walls of the
laboratory. "Love!" The laughter mounted. "What a foolish notion,
Sheila. You interested me once. You had spirit, and I was impelled to
discover how much it would take to break that spirit."
The sobs stopped. She paused, then looked up at him. He was smiling,
his thin lips twisted, the grey eyes glistening. She stared at him for
a long moment.
"You're wishing you could hurt me, aren't you, Sheila? You're wishing
you could strike out at me ... hear me cry in pain. That's why you bore
me. You're so transparent. I can read your every thought ... anticipate
your every emotion and they're all dull." He touched the thing on the
table again. "That's why I've perfected Ohm here. He'll be the perfect
companion."
Sheila looked at the contraption he touched, and a shudder of
revulsion shook her. Once it had been only a few scraps of steel, a
photo-electric eye, a couple of batteries, some condensers and relays.
Now it was "alive" and Craig had given it a name: Ohm.
She looked from the created to the creator. "I should have known this
was the way it would end, and I can believe you when you say you've
never loved me. You can't love anyone. You're incapable of love, Craig.
Other men work for the happiness of those near to them, but you are
only intrigued by pain and suffering. If it's any satisfaction to you,
your experiment with me has been very successful."
Craig bowed slightly.
She moved toward the laboratory door. "It always works out for you,
doesn't it, Craig? You always get bored first. You're always the one
who smiles and tells someone else to get out." She stopped in the
doorway. "Some day, perhaps you'll be the one to go; you'll be the one
who has become transparent and uninteresting."
He shrugged his shoulders. "I can only hope that when that day arrives
I'll be able to resign myself as graciously as you have."
For a second, she hesitated and then very quietly she said: "I loved
you once, Craig. When we were married, I loved you very much. I could
still love you, if ... if you could find it in your heart to be human.
But until you can, I guess Ohm is the companion you should have.
Goodbye."
"A very eloquent speech, my dear. Goodbye and good luck."
With a final quick glance at the thing on the table, Sheila stepped
through the laboratory door and out of Craig Stevens' life.
He sighed as he heard the outside door slam behind her. She had been a
fascinating experiment. Little by little, he had tested her, discovered
those irritants which were best calculated to make her react. Broken
dinner engagements, forgotten birthdays, public insults, lies,
deceptions, intrigues--each had played its part in her final nervous
disintegration. But toward the end, the game had proved boring.
So, he had devised Ohm, and now he was left in solitude to explore the
infinite possibilities represented by his electric pet.
Light was Ohm's food. He craved it as humans crave food, drink,
companionship. Craig had built a special home for his creature--a
brilliantly lighted hutch where it could creep to recharge the
batteries which gave it movement and power.
* * * * *
Looking down at his pet, Craig felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of
possession. Ohm was perfect. His shiny steel shell glistened in the
bright laboratory light. Under that shell were three wheels and two
battery-powered motors--one for creeping and one for steering. A
delicate brain and nervous system fashioned of condensers and relays
would motivate Ohm.
Craig was surprised to note that his hands were trembling slightly as
he made the final connections. The scene with Sheila had perhaps made
more of an impression than he had thought; and then, too, this was his
big moment ... the moment toward which he had worked for months.
Connections completed, he struggled to lift Ohm to the floor. Though
Ohm was relatively small--he stood just hip-high and was perhaps
three-and-a-half feet long--he was surprisingly heavy.
Craig Stevens stepped back and waited. If his calculations were
correct, Ohm would now begin his search for light. He would move
about the lab ... guided by his photo-electric eye ... seeking the
gratification which only strong light could give.
Absolute silence held the laboratory. Had he been wrong? Had he
miscalculated? He stared at the unmoving creature. He willed it to
move. He would not be defied by this mass of steel and wire. Move, he
commanded it. Move!
Slowly, with a slight jerking motion, Ohm began to move forward. Like
an animal that has been sleeping and is still groggy with dreams, it
moved--hesitated--then moved again.
Craig Stevens sighed with satisfaction. His calculations had been
correct. Ohm lived. The creature was moving more rapidly now across
the room. As it gained momentum, it was confronted suddenly with a lab
table. With a painful little thump, it collided with the table leg.
Then, there was a faintly ominous growling noise, and Ohm backed away
and set out in another direction.
Fascinated, Craig followed the creature from room to room. When Ohm
discovered a patch of bright light, he would pause and bask momentarily
in its brilliance. His contentment and deep satisfaction were apparent.
At last, by a process of trial and error, Ohm came to the hutch
that Craig had built. Eagerly, he pushed his way to the door and
quickly glided in. After satisfying himself that Ohm was comfortably
installed, Craig dropped the wire grating over the hutch. His new pet
was at home.
The next few weeks were busy ones for Craig and Ohm. Countless
experiments were tried, and in every case, the robot was a model
subject. His potentials seemed unlimited.
Craig was asked to give a special lecture and demonstration at the
University, and his audience of scholars and research experts were
delighted with Ohm.
"The perfect companion," Craig laughingly called him. "So
understanding. If any of you gentlemen are tiring of your wives and
their demands, I'll be very pleased to duplicate Ohm for you."
Ohm wandered about Craig's apartment at will. Occasional guests who
dropped in to visit soon accustomed themselves to the sight of the
metal creature lumbering through the room, bumping into chairs and
tables, growling faintly and changing its course.
* * * * *
Some weeks after Ohm was first animated, Craig conceived the idea of
giving him a more definite personality. After a few hours spent in
sketching, and some hurried consultations with a metalsmith, Ohm was
equipped with a head.
Now his presence was even more disturbing than before. Craig had placed
the photo-electric eye directly in the middle of the high steel
forehead. A nose was simulated, and, last of all, a hinged jaw, with
twin rows of razor sharp fangs.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Professor Harvey Beale, Craig's oldest
associate, "why did you have to turn Ohm into such a grinning monster?
I think I preferred him as a blank nonentity."
Craig laughed. "He _is_ ferocious looking, isn't he? I devised that
head to scare away peddlers and tramps. Now, when the doorbell rings
and I don't want to be disturbed, I just let Ohm face them down!"
Professor Beale joined in Craig's laughter, but there was a note of
constraint in his voice. "You feel that you have perfect control over
Ohm?"
"Complete." Craig looked across the room where the robot basked in a
puddle of yellow lamplight. "It's a wonderful feeling, Beale ... a
feeling that you can never experience with a human being ... or even a
cat or a dog."
With a little grunt, Ohm began moving toward the chair in which Craig
sat. The single eye glistened in the leering face and the small wheels
made a singing noise as he spun across the carpet.
Professor Beale followed the movement with some little apprehension.
"What's such a wonderful feeling?"
Craig gestured to Ohm. "This sense of possession ... of control. It's
a thing we all want ... every human being ... from the time we're old
enough to clutch our first pet until we drop into our graves. We seek
it in marriage ... in our children ... but we're always cheated, Beale.
Always cheated because there's an unpredictable element. But with Ohm,"
he dropped his hand over the side of his easy chair and patted the
metal head, "with Ohm, there's no doubt. No question. He's mine ... and
no matter how sorely I try him, I can always predict his reactions."
Professor Beale nodded slowly. "I suppose. How ... how sorely have you
tried him, Craig?"
"I haven't really put him to the test as yet. But now that the
preliminaries are out of the way, I mean to begin. I'm going to thwart
him, Beale. I'm going to frustrate him in every way. I'm going to
deprive him of the thing he desires most ... light ... and observe his
reactions."
A flicker of apprehension touched Beale's long, friendly face. "These
experiments ... you'll do them at the school lab?"
Craig Stevens stood up. "No. Here. Ohm is adjusted to this atmosphere.
He knows these rooms. His reactions will be truer if I don't move him."
"And just what do you hope to prove?"
* * * * *
Stevens stared down at the thing he had created. The photo-electric
eye seemed to wink up at him. "The human brain has something like ten
billion nerve cells, Beale. Ohm has the equivalent of only two, and
yet, you'll admit, he gives a lifelike performance. By studying Ohm's
frustrations and reactions, we'll be able to draw some very valuable
conclusions regarding human nervous disorders and breakdowns."
The other man nodded absently. "I wish," he said finally, "that you'd
transfer your experiments to the school lab, Craig. I think it would be
safer."
"Safer!" Craig laughed a little too loudly. "No, Beale. I started this
in my own way, and that's how I mean to finish it. I'm perfectly safe
here. Ohm won't let anything harm me. Will you, Ohm?"
It was coincidence, of course, but at that moment, Ohm turned and
scuttled over to Craig's side.
He began the breaking-down process slowly. When Ohm settled himself
in a particularly warm puddle of light, Craig would snap it off.
Patiently, the robot would begin its search for another pool.
Then Craig moved the hutch, and watched with academic amusement the
creature's wild and frantic efforts to locate its home--the source
of its life-giving food. Ohm groped in the corner where the hutch
had always stood, and pathetic little whirring and buzzing noises
came from his open jaws. Again and again he returned to the corner,
painstakingly exploring every inch of it, his movements more and more
jerky and disconnected.
At last, when it seemed that the creature might destroy itself in its
frustration, Craig restored the hutch to its accustomed place. Ohm
scuttled in and huddled in a far corner. For a great many hours, the
robot refused to venture again from its shelter.
Next, Craig tried an even more agonizing experiment. He left the hutch
in its usual spot, but he dropped over its entrance a mesh of fine
wire, which permitted the light to filter through but prevented Ohm's
entry.
He released Ohm in the room and settled himself to watch the results.
After a number of exploratory trips, the robot seemed to feel the need
of refreshment, and accordingly began its slow, bumping progress toward
the hutch. Excited by the bright light which filtered through the mesh,
Ohm accelerated his pace as he approached the haven, and crashed with
painful violence against the barrier. The recoil sent him spinning
several yards away.
The quiet room was filled with the sound of Craig Stevens' delighted
laughter and the faint little grunting sounds of the robot. Again,
Ohm tried an entry, and again, he failed. The next approach was more
cautious, but the results were the same. He seemed maddened by the
presence of the bright light which he so deeply craved and which had
become suddenly inaccessible to him.
Again and again he flung his steel body against the wire mesh in a
mounting frenzy of desire.
Never had Craig Stevens witnessed a spectacle so excruciatingly amusing
and revealing. It was as pathetic and priceless as Sheila's foredoomed
desire to beget a child.
Finally, as the battery which powered him was depleted, Ohm subsided,
his steel muzzle touching the mesh which separated him from the
life-giving light he had sought.
* * * * *
Remembering the robot's bewildered struggles as he recorded them in his
notes, Craig was shaken from a fresh paroxysm of laughter. He wished
now that films had been taken of the experiment, for certainly it had
proved most revealing. Of course, it would be repeated. There would be
other opportunities.
And there were, for Craig tried that particular experiment many times.
Not that he needed additional data for his report. He added scarcely
one new observation after that first trial. It was more that the
robot's agony of frustration seemed to satisfy some deep craving ... a
desire as insatiable as Ohm's for the light. Craig could not explain
this fascination, in fact, he did not attempt to explain it. Such an
explanation might have proved doubly disturbing.
Craig seldom went out. More and more, he gave himself over to the
delights of mistreating Ohm. He found that he no longer felt any need
for human associations. He and the robot were a complete little world
in themselves. The creator and the created. The torturer and the
tortured.
One evening, Professor Beale did drop in, and before he could stop
himself, commented on Craig's appearance: "You're not well, Craig," he
said. "You've lost weight. Are you sure you're not carrying a fever
now?"
Craig fought down the unreasoning resentment he felt for Beale. He had
planned a new variant to test Ohm that night, and now Beale's visit
had cheated him. "Never been better," he countered. "I've been working
hard."
"With the robot?" Beale's eyes roamed the room, seeking for the
steel-encased body, the glistening cyclops-eye.
"Naturally. And believe me, Beale, my report is going to create a
sensation. Every neurologist and physiologist in the world will be
taking lessons from me." His voice had gotten progressively shriller,
and he paced nervously up and down as he spoke.
Beale shifted uncomfortably. "You're working too hard, Craig. Take some
time off. Forget Ohm for a while. Enjoy yourself."
Craig spun on him: "Enjoy myself! Do you think there's any other place
in the world where I could find the excitement that I know right here?
Forget Ohm! I can't forget him. He's wonderful, Beale! Sensational!"
"Of course, of course." Beale was feeling more and more alarmed by
Stevens' manner. "I saw Sheila the other day," he ventured, seeking for
something to take the conversation away from Ohm. "She asked about you."
Craig's laugh was choked and half-hysterical. "Sheila! I'd completely
forgotten her. Has she found herself a nice dull nobody?"
"I think she's still in love with you, Craig."
Craig's giggle climbed the scale. "In love! You talk like a fool,
Beale. Love! What childishness, when there are other emotions so much
more real and gratifying."
* * * * *
Harvey Beale stared at the man across the room. Was this the same
Craig Stevens with whom he had worked so many hours in the laboratory?
Was this semi-hysterical man, the great scientist who had served so
brilliantly in the last war? What had happened? What was happening?
A sudden groaning noise at his side turned him abruptly. It was Ohm.
And there was a subtle change there, too. The movement was no longer
clean and mechanical. It had developed an individuality. When the robot
moved, it reminded Beale of a whipped yellow cur which cringes at the
sound of a human voice. Both Stevens and his companion were changed.
"Let's get away for a week," Beale said, and rose ... stepping quickly
away from Ohm. "You'll come back to all this with a new perspective."
Craig shook his head. "Couldn't leave now. Couldn't leave Ohm. Later,
maybe."
Why doesn't the fool leave, he thought. Can't he see I've work to do?
Can't he sense that I'm anxious to get on with the experiments?
Reluctantly, Beale moved toward the door. "I wish you'd give yourself
some rest," he said. "You're pushing yourself too hard."
"I'll be finished soon," Craig said. "Then I can rest. Then I can rest
for a long time."
Beale paused in the doorway and looked back. The robot crouched in a
corner of the room, its photo-electric eye twitching nervously. That
room was full of anticipation. They were waiting for Beale to go--the
two of them. Abruptly, he turned and fled.
"Now," said Craig, as Beale's footfalls died away, "now, Ohm, we can
get on with our work."
Days passed and the fascination increased. It absorbed and obsessed
Craig. His every waking hour was filled with new plans, new variants.
At night, when he sank at last into an exhausted sleep, he dreamed of
Ohm and the blind frenzies of frustration to which he was yet to be
driven.
Craig saw no one. Ohm was his entire life. A little child who came to
his door looking for a lost kitten, fled sobbing, when in a fit of
irritation, he threatened her with the robot.
Nothing else mattered; nothing but Ohm. He made little changes in
the robot's construction. Supplied him with springs that permitted a
graceful, bounding movement; increased the flexibility of the jaws and
the razor sharp metal teeth. He was puzzled by a peculiar stain that
seemed to have discolored Ohm's teeth. Since no food passed the robot's
lips, Craig could not account for the presence of the stains.
On that night, the torment had been prolonged, and once, during it, Ohm
seemed to sense Craig's presence and moved toward him with a peculiar
half-pleading, half-threatening motion. Excitedly, Craig recorded
the deviation. It seemed to mark some sort of turning point in Ohm's
development.
When the robot succumbed at last to exhaustion, Craig permitted him to
enter the hutch, and leaving him there, proceeded to prepare himself
for bed. The sessions with Ohm were leaving him more and more worn out
and frazzled. Perhaps Beale had been right. A few days' rest would
restore his perspective. Of course he would miss Ohm. Never had he
experienced so gratifying a relationship. It was much more complete
than his domination of his mother had been or his subjection of Sheila.
It left him feeling at once weak and god-like.
His toilet completed, he went back to Ohm's hutch to put down the wire
mesh for the night. Once or twice, he had forgotten it, and the robot's
collisions had awakened him early in the morning. As tired as he was,
he wanted now to forestall any such disturbance.
* * * * *
Ohm was not in his hutch. That was an unlooked-for development. Usually
after the experiments, he was so depleted he did not stir from the
hutch for hours. And yet now he was gone.
Half-heartedly, Craig looked for him, but he was overcome suddenly with
a terrible drowsiness. After all, did it matter whether Ohm spent the
night in the hutch? He'd huddle in some corner of the apartment till
morning.
Wearily, Craig snapped off all the lights and stumbled into his
bedroom. The bedlamp burned brightly in the darkness. He sank down onto
the bed. He couldn't remember ever having been so tired. He closed his
eyes. Bright red circles spun and whirled. Sleep. He must have sleep.
He was dreaming. The little girl, whose kitten had disappeared was
pointing an accusing finger at him. He was trying to explain that he
hadn't taken her kitten. And then, Sheila was there, and she had a
great urgency in her manner. She was warning him. Stains. The stains
that he had noticed. Didn't he see?
No. He didn't see. His mind spun and whirled. Sounds were a tortured
mixture of Sheila's voice, the little girl's sobs, and the faint
mechanical grunts which Ohm made.
And then, the laboratory collapsed. The walls caved in to the center
and the roof dropped down on top of him. It was a terrible pressure on
his chest--crushing it. He had to remove that pressure--had to push
that crushing weight away--had to get free.
But he was awake. And it wasn't the roof on his chest. It was Ohm ...
Ohm crouched on top of him ... the beady photo-electric eye focused on
the lamp which burned like a beacon in the otherwise total dark. And
then Craig remembered. He hadn't caged Ohm in for the night. He had
been loose in the apartment. Naturally, he had come to the only light,
and now, he crouched on Craig's chest.
He tried to move, but the robot only flattened itself more--a dead
weight. The heavy steel jaws poised over Craig's throat, the steel
teeth glittering in the light.
"Ohm!" That single word was a prayer, a plea, a sob.
The stains on the teeth ... the missing kitten ... those razor sharp
teeth. A strange purring noise filled the room ... caused the bed to
vibrate under him. The steel jaws clicked open.
"I didn't mean it. You don't understand!"
The photo-electric eye blazed wildly as the razor sharp fangs touched
his throat....
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