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that life is good?"
Looking now at Titian's thousand-year-old more-than-masterpiece, Herron hardly
heard the machine's answer, he was thinking helplessly and hopelessly of his
own most recent work.
"Now you will tell me what it means," said the machine without emphasis.
Herron walked away without answering, leaving the drawer open.
The berserker's mouthpiece walked at his side. "Tell me what it means or you
will be punished."
"If you can pause to think, so can I." But Herron's stomach had knotted up at
the threat of punishment, seeming to feel that pain mattered even more than
death. Herron had great contempt for his stomach.
His feet took him back to his easel. Looking at the discordant and brutal line
that a few minutes ago had pleased him, he now found it as disgusting as
everything else he had tried to do in the past year.
The berserker asked: "What have you made here?"
Herron picked up a brush he had forgotten to clean, and wiped at it irritably.
"It is my attempt to get at your essence, to capture you with paint and canvas
as you have seen those humans captured." He waved at the storage racks. "My
attempt has failed, as most do."
There was another pause, which Herron did not try to time.
"An attempt to praise me?"
Herron broke the spoiled brush and threw it down. "Call it what you like."
This time the pause was short, and at its end the machine did not speak, but
turned away and walked in the direction of the airlock. Some of its fellows
clanked past to join it. From the direction of the airlock there began to come
sounds like those of heavy metal being worked and hammered. The interrogation
seemed to be over for the time being.
Herron's thoughts wanted to be anywhere but on his work or on his fate, and
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they returned to what Hanus had shown him, or tried to show him. Not a regular
lifeboat, but she might get away, the captain had said. All it needs now is to
press the button.
Herron started walking, smiling faintly as he realized that if the berserker
was as careless as it seemed, he might possibly escape it.
Escape to what ? He couldn't paint any more, if he ever could. All that really
mattered to him now was here, and on other ships leaving Earth.
Back at the storage rack, Herron swung the
Man with the Glove out so its case came free from the rack and became a handy
cart. He wheeled the portrait aft. There might be yet one worthwhile thing he
could do with his life.
The picture was massive in its statglass shielding, but he thought he could
fit it into the boat.
As an itch might nag a dying man, the question of what the captain had been
intending with the boat nagged Herron. Hanus hadn't seemed worried about
Herron's fate, but instead had spoken of trusting Herron....
Nearing the stern, out of sight of the machines, Herron passed a strapped-down
stack of crated statuary, and heard a noise, a rapid feeble pounding.
It took several minutes to find and open the proper case. When he lifted the
lid with its padded lining, a girl wearing a coverall sat up, her hair all
wild as if standing in terror.
"Are they gone?" She had bitten at her fingers and nails until they were
bleeding.
When he didn't answer at once, she repeated her question again and again, in a
rising whine.
"The machines are still here," he said at last.
Literally shaking in her fear, she climbed out of the case. "Where's Gus? Have
they taken him?"
"Gus?" But he thought he was beginning to understand.
"Gus Hanus, the captain. He and I are he was trying to save me, to get me away
from Earth."
"I'm quite sure he's dead," said Herron. "He fought the machines."
Her bleeding fingers clutched at her lower face. "They'll kill us, too! Or
worse! What can we do?"
"Don't mourn your lover so deeply," he said. But the girl seemed not to hear
him; her wild eyes looked this way and that, expecting the machines. "Help me
with this picture," he told her calmly. "Hold the door there for me."
She obeyed as if half-hypnotized, not questioning what he was doing.
"Gus said there'd be a boat," she muttered to herself. "If he had to smuggle
me down to Tau Epsilon he was going to use a special little boat " She broke
off, staring at
Herron, afraid that he had heard her and was going to steal her boat. As
indeed he was.
When he had the painting in the stern compartment, he stopped. He looked long
at the
Man with a Glove, but in the end all he could seem to see was that the
fingertips of the ungloved hand were not bitten bloody.
Herron took the shivering girl by the arm and pushed her into the tiny boat.
She huddled there in dazed terror; she was not good-looking. He wondered what
Hanus had seen in her.
"There's room for only one," he said, and she shrank and bared her teeth as if
afraid he meant to drag her out again. "After I close the hatch, push that
button there, the activator. Understand?
That she understood at once. He dogged the double hatch shut and waited. Only
about three seconds passed before there came a scraping sound that he supposed
meant the boat had gone.
Nearby was a tiny observation blister, and Herron put his head into it and
watched the stars turn beyond the dark blizzard of the nebula. After a while
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