Morey groaned. He was watching a scene of unparalleled activity, and it sent shivers up and down his spine.
There was the butler-robot, hard at work, his copper face expressionless. Dressed in Morey’s own sports knickers and golfing shoes, the robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again, with Morey’s own clubs. Until the ball wore ragged and was replaced; and the shafts of the clubs leaned out of true; and the close-stitched seams in the clothing began to stretch and abrade.
“My God!” said Morey hollowly.
There were the maid-robots, exquisitely dressed in Cherry’s best, walking up and down in the delicate, slim shoes, sitting and rising and bending and turning. The cook-robots and the serving-robots were preparing dionysian meals.
Morey swallowed. “You—you’ve been doing this right along,” he said to Henry. “That’s why the quotas have been filled.”
“Oh, yes, sir. Just as you told us.”
Morey had to sit down. One of the serving-robots politely scurried over with a chair, brought from upstairs for their new chores.
Waste.
Morey tasted the word between his lips.
Waste.
You never wasted things. You used them. If necessary, you drove yourself to the edge of breakdown to use them; you made every breath a burden and every hour a torment to use them, until through diligent consuming and/or occupational merit, you were promoted to the next higher class, and were allowed to consume less frantically. But you didn’t wantonly destroy or throw out. You consumed.
Morey thought fearfully: When the Board finds out about this…
Still, he reminded himself, the Board hadn’t found out. It might take some time before they did, for humans, after all, never entered robot quarters. There was no law against it, not even a sacrosanct custom. But there was no reason to. When breaks occurred, which was infrequently, maintenance robots or repair squads came in and put them back in order. Usually the humans involved didn’t even know it had happened, because the robots used their own TBR radio circuits and the process was next thing to automatic.
Morey said reprovingly, “Henry, you should have told—well, I mean reminded me about this.”
“But, sir!” Henry protested. “’Don’t tell a living soul,’ you said. You made it a direct order.”
“Umph. Well, keep it that way. I—uh—I have to go back upstairs. Better get the rest of the robots started on dinner.”
Morey left, not comfortably.
The dinner to celebrate Morey’s promotion was difficult. Morey liked Cherry’s parents. Old Elon, after the premarriage inquisition that father must inevitably give to daughter’s suitor, had buckled right down to the job of adjustment. The old folks were good about not interfering, good about keeping their superior social status to themselves, good about helping out on the budget—at least once a week, they could be relied on to come over for a hearty meal, and Mrs. Elon had more than once remade some of Cherry’s new dresses to fit herself, even to the extent of wearing all the high-point ornamentation.
And they had been wonderful about the wedding gifts, when Morey and their daughter got married. The most any member of Morey’s family had been willing to take was a silver set or a few crystal table pieces. The Elons had come through with a dazzling promise to accept a car, a birdbath for their garden and a complete set of living-room furniture! Of course, they could afford it—they had to consume so little that it wasn’t much strain for them even to take gifts of that magnitude. But without their help, Morey knew, the first few months of matrimony would have been even tougher consuming than they were.
But on this particular night it was hard for Morey to like anyone. He responded with monosyllables; he barely grunted when Elon proposed a toast to his promotion and his brilliant future. He was preoccupied.
Rightly so. Morey, in his deepest, bravest searching, could find no clue in his memory as to just what the punishment might be for what he had done. But he had a sick certainty that trouble lay ahead.
Morey went over his problem so many times that an anesthesia set in. By the time dinner was ended and he and his father-in-law were in the den with their brandy, he was more or less functioning again.
Elon, for the first time since Morey had known him, offered him one of his cigars. “You’re Grade Five—can afford to smoke somebody else’s now, hey?”
“Yeah,” Morey said glumly.
There was a moment of silence. Then Elon, as punctilious as any companion-robot, coughed and tried again. “Remember being peaked till I hit Grade Five,” he reminisced meaningfully. “Consuming keeps a man on the go, all right. Things piled up at the law office, couldn’t be taken care of while ration points piled up, too. And consuming comes first, of course—that’s a citizen’s prime duty. Mother and I had our share of grief over that, but a couple that wants to make a go of marriage and citizenship just pitches in and does the job, hey?”
Morey repressed a shudder and managed to nod.
“Best thing about upgrading,” Elon went on, as if he had elicited a satisfactory answer, “don’t have to spend so much time consuming, give more attention to work. Greatest luxury in the world, work. Wish I had as much stamina as you young fellows. Five days a week in court are about all I can manage. Hit six for a while, relaxed first time in my life, but my doctor made me cut down. Said we can’t overdo pleasures. You’ll be working two days a week now, hey?”
Morey produced another nod.
Elon drew deeply on his cigar, his eyes bright as they watched Morey. He was visibly puzzled, and Morey, even in his half-daze, could recognize the exact moment at which Elon drew the wrong inference. “Ah, everything okay with you and Cherry?” he asked diplomatically.
“Fine!” Morey exclaimed. “Couldn’t be better!”
“Good. Good.” Elon changed the subject with almost an audible wrench. “Speaking of court, had an interesting case the other day. Young fellow—year or two younger than you, I guess—came in with a Section Ninety-seven on him. Know what that is? Breaking and entering!”
“Breaking and entering,” Morey repeated wonderingly, interested in spite of himself. “Breaking and entering what?”
“Houses. Old term; law’s full of them. Originally applied to stealing things. Still does, I discovered.”
“You mean he stole something?” Morey asked in bewilderment.
“Exactly! He stole. Strangest thing I ever came across. Talked it over with one of his bunch of lawyers later; new one on him, too. Seems this kid had a girl friend, nice kid but a little, you know, plump. She got interested in art.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Morey said.
“Nothing wrong with her, either. She didn’t do anything. She didn’t like him too much, though. Wouldn’t marry him. Kid got to thinking about how he could get her to change her mind and—well, you know that big Mondrian in the Museum?”
“I’ve never been there,” Morey said, somewhat embarrassed.
“Um. Ought to try it someday, boy. Anyway, comes closing time at the Museum the other day, this kid sneaks in. He steals the painting. That’s right—steals it. Takes it to give to the girl.”
Morey shook his head blankly. “I never heard of anything like that in my life.”
“Not many have. Girl wouldn’t take it, by the way. Got scared when he brought it to her. She must’ve tipped off the police, I guess. Somebody did. Took ’em three hours to find it, even when they knew it was hanging on a wall. Pretty poor kid. Forty-two room house.”
“And there was a law against it?” Morey asked. “I mean it’s like making a law against breathing.”
“Certainly was. Old law, of course. Kid got set back two grades. Would have been more but, my God, he was only a Grade Three as it was.”
“Yeah,” said Morey, wetting his lips. “Say, Dad—”
“Um?”
Morey cleared his throat. “Uh—I wonder—I mean what’s the penalty, for instance, for things like—well, misusing rations or anything like that?”
Elon’s eyebrows went high. “Misusing rations?”
“Say you had a liquor ration, it might be, and instead of drinking it, you—well, flushed it down the drain or something…”
His voice trailed off. Elon was frowning. He said, “Funny thing, seems I’m not as broadminded as I thought I was. For some reason, I don’t find that amusing.”