Mr. Marquette pulled two new five-dollar bills out of his wallet and dropped them arrogantly on the table. “Please wrap up the middle pile. I’ll be back for the rest tomorrow morning.”

  The old man kept talking. “He was kind of an odd sort, he was, the man who brought all this stuff. He was dressed real expensive, and had a ruby ring as big as my knuckle here. And he asked seventy for everything. I’ll be clean for a short while, but it was worth it.”

  The storekeeper pointed to a stack of partially unwrapped paintings in the corner. “Would you like to look?” He put some paper and twine around the pile of records and slid them across the table to Mr. Marquette.

  “No, I’ll look another time.” He picked up the bundle and headed for the door. The old man hobbled after him, making more offers which Mr. Marquette ignored.

  The walk home seemed to take hours. Today, Mr. Marquette thought, I will not feed the pigeons, nor will I look at the painters in the park. Near his house he did not even say hello to the hotdog salesman who kept him up on current politics and gave him all the right answers to use at cocktail parties. His neighbor’s dogs were barking and playing by his stairs, but he ignored them despite the fact that they had kept him awake last night.

  He left the records on the hall table just outside his living room. Mr. Marquette’s furnishings were few, but those he had were the finest antiques he could afford. His rooms had a musty odor about them, as if rain had leaked through the roof.

  Mr. Marquette kindled his fire, and when he felt the heat spreading throughout the room, he took off his overcoat and put it in the hall closet. On his way back, he picked up the pile of records and put them by the record player. He took the plastic cover off the precision turntable and turned on the power amp. Then he took out the strange record and placed it on the soft turntable mat. The record turned smoothly without a trace of warpage. Mr. Marquette adjusted his turntable for 33⅓ playing and placed the needle on the edge of the record.

  He walked over to his high-backed Victorian chair, sat down, and looked at the crack in his ceiling.

  The sound from the record began as a high-pitched hum. There was no music. The sound stopped for a moment and began again, but this time it sounded like a low-key tuning fork. There was just enough sound to make him want to hear more. Suddenly the hum was everywhere; it came not only from the two speakers but also from the floor, ceiling and walls. Mr. Marquette felt it deep inside of him, like some kind of soft liquid. It washed over his consciousness and numbed him.

  He tried to get up and failed.

  He sat still, trying to fight off the panic that welled up inside him. The room grew darker until he could see nothing.

  In the black field, moiré patterns of black and white lines interlocked to form strange perspectives. They faded slowly, and sharper lines appeared. He looked into an abyss of geometric shapes. He felt drawn into them, and suddenly he was moving through the lines. Perpendiculars were bent and turned into circles. He felt as if he were turning corners, but it was difficult to be sure. He was clearly aware of his motion—he felt as if he were falling at great speed. He screamed but there was no sound.

  After what seemed to him an eternity, he found himself lying on a soft mound of sand, looking up at the sky—a red sky with two yellow green moons. White clouds hung low over steel blue mountains.

  Mr. Marquette noticed that he was lying at the edge of a deep canyon. On the other side stood a castle, an old decaying structure, which, despite its appearance, had a look of permanence about it. Mr. Marquette got up and walked over to the drawbridge which spanned the chasm. Without hesitation he began walking across. The wood creaked, and he looked down at a silver band of river hundreds of feet below him. He touched the wall of the castle as he went through the entrance. It was made of burnished metal, but the light from the two moons gave it the look of stone.

  There was no courtyard. Mr. Marquette walked directly into a large antechamber. There were five open doors around the chamber. He caught glimpses of massive four-posters, drapes, and bookcases that reached to the ceiling. On the walls of the antechamber itself were gold-embroidered tapestries depicting strange-looking humanoids on a hunt after animals resembling greyhounds. The floor was made of a hard, azure-colored stone. A table and two chairs stood in the center, and on the table was a game which looked very much like chess.

  Mr. Marquette walked over to the table and picked up one of the figures. The piece was made of an emerald-like substance, and a green fire seemed to emanate from inside it. He reached out to put the piece back on the board but failed. The room was reeling and spinning, and the scene before him went badly out of focus. In a moment there was nothing but the black field he had experienced before.

  Mr. Marquette watched the black field dissolve, then found himself sitting in his high-backed chair. The phonograph needle was running back and forth at the end of the record.

  In his hand he held the emerald green figure.

  For a long time he sat there trying to understand what had happened to him. He looked at the figurine in his hand, and his mind wandered back to the castle with its treasures. If only he could possess them!

  He got up to lift the tone arm off the record. He started to put the needle at the beginning for another try—but stopped. He ran to his hall closet and took out the large laundry bag. He emptied it on the floor and went back to the phonograph. He placed the needle at the beginning very carefully. He gripped the laundry bag tightly in anticipation.

  The black field returned, with its interlocking patterns and the sensation of immense depths beyond the fabric of familiar human experience. He felt drawn in as before, but this time the sensation of falling was accompanied by a feeling of great urgency.

  He again found himself on the mound of soft sand. Everything was the same—the sky, the moons, the castle of iron and the great chasm. He ran across the creaky drawbridge as if afraid it might be pulled up at any moment.

  He entered the great chamber and approached the game table. All the pieces were there except for the one which now stood in his room a world away. He swept the board and all the pieces into his bag. He ran into one of the open rooms. It was a luxurious bath of some kind, but now there were plants growing in the sunken pool of water. The walls were made of cut stone colored a deep blue. Huge painted figures stood around him as if guarding the room. A strange light emanated from the bottom of the pool.

  He left the room and wandered about until he came upon what looked like a library. The large room was filled with a blue white light. There was a table in the corner, and on it were instruments which he didn’t recognize. There were hundreds of glittering objects that looked like gems. He swept them all into his bag.

  He wondered how much longer the record would play. There should be five minutes left at best, he estimated. One side played for twenty minutes at most.

  He had enough for this trip, and he could make as many as he wished. Here was a world for the taking. He had always known that it must exist, for the universe was an aesthetic whole and would lack perfection if it lacked his world as one in the cosmic manifold.

  Mr. Marquette walked back across the great chasm, back to the soft mound of sand that had welcomed him twice already. He sat down on the mound and set the bag beside him. He hadn’t noticed how heavy it had become. He stretched his legs in a most ungentlemanly fashion and relaxed.

  A world away, children played leapfrog. They jumped over each other, laughed and shouted. A piece of dust shook loose from the crack in the ceiling and settled upon the record. The needle, which tracked at two grams in its precision tonearm, skipped gently back and forth, back and forth—

  Mr. Marquette waited—

  Darkness of Day

  JENNA moved through the forest soundlessly, leaning forward from the waist, traveling swiftly—avoiding the twigs that might snap under her feet and betray her presence. The morning air was cool and moist on her face.

  When she reached the top of the small hill, she paused. She had seen a metallic glitter among the trees below. If she were not alone, she would have doubled back and attacked the creature by now. But it was wiser to avoid being seen.

  The ground under her feet was still hard, but would soon be muddy from the spring rains. She was glad winter was over. Jenna spent winters with her tribe, exchanging maps of trails scrawled on pieces of bark for food and shelter. This winter had been better than most. She had shown her people a field of wild wheat, and had led scouts to a small river where deer often drank. Food had been plentiful and only two children had died. But she had left as soon as the air had grown warmer, not liking to stay in the village longer than necessary.

  Jenna was a source of shame to her mother. When she had reached thirteen summers, she had been married to Woka, the best hunter among her people. But after five summers of marriage, Jenna remained childless. So she had left him, and Woka took a new wife.

  After that there had been no reason to stay in the village through the year. Jenna’s presence only reminded people of her shame and made it difficult for her sisters to find husbands. Her past friends, now busy raising their own children, were uneasy in her presence, as if fearful that her sterility would somehow pass to them. There were so few humans. Every life was precious, and her people were wary of even the most distant dangers.

  So Jenna had left, preferring her solitary life in the woods and the company of her own thoughts, which sometimes seemed unfamiliar and strange even to her. She returned only in winter to trade her knowledge for food and temporary shelter. Once she had felt shame before her people, but now she was happy with her life. She was free to roam and discover new things.

  She still sensed the presence of the other in the forest. It was no longer behind her, but somewhere to her right and moving ahead of her. Her heart began to beat quickly. She took a deep breath and started to move back down the hill. Then she began to run. The sense of danger hammered at her mind and pushed her past the trees.

  But even as she ran, she was curious about the being who was trailing her. She always thought of them as beings like herself, and this thought still surprised her. Her father once told her that the metal beings were the guardians of men, and that they would strike down those who repeated the errors of the Old Ones. Those who loved machines and tried to escape the ways of men would be punished. Most of the village believed this. But Jenna had been told many things that were not true, and she knew other tribes thought differently.

  She ran down the hillside and splashed across the thawing stream. The water was cold and fresh. Chunks of ice floated downstream. She stumbled up the other side and ran for the trees. By now, she thought, her stalker should be confused. By doubling back and crossing the stream, she could follow her previous direction, but parallel to and behind her pursuer.

  She went forward slowly, listening to all the sounds of the forest awakening from winter. Feeling a little more secure now, she wondered about the metal ones again. She knew that men had been killed by them. Yet once she had seen one shoot an animal, which soon after had awakened and walked around as if nothing had happened. She had heard stories of brave men who mocked the old stories and attacked the metal people in order to obtain their many parts for use in fashioning hunting tools and other implements. These would very often be exchanged for food and clothing with other tribes. Her husband Woka once possessed such a part, which he had used as a knife. He had been very proud of it until he lost it in the snow. She had not been permitted to mention it until the day she left him, or as he put it, the day he put her aside.

  Yet the metal people only fought in self-defense, and otherwise did not seem to pay attention to the few tribes living in the forests. She had never heard of a metal one hunting one of her people. Not ever.

  But if that was all true, then why was a metal one tracking her now? She stopped and listened. She could not sense him, but her heart started to beat faster again. A shiver went up her spine.

  She spun around suddenly and saw him staring at her with his wide inhuman eyes. He had tricked her! He had done the same thing that she had. The weapon in his hand was raised, but he seemed to hesitate.

  She darted to her right. She heard the weapon fire at the same time, and something entered her side through her deerskin shirt. She fell to the ground. As she lost consciousness, she saw the metal one coming closer. . . .

  She had a dim memory of being carried. A vague image of the inhuman face seemed to swim in her mind. A series of short clicking sounds brought her to consciousness. Gradually she opened her eyes.

  He was standing over her. His sturdy metal torso was perched on two slender silvery legs. His eyes were glassy surfaces, covering almost the entire top half of his head. And he was directing them at her. She started to scream, but he took a few steps backward and gestured at her. Then his long arms fell to his sides and he stood perfectly still.

  She raised herself on one elbow and saw that she was lying on the floor of a room. On one wall there were five strange-looking nooks with open hatches. Otherwise the room was gray-walled and featureless. There was a shelf that ran the length of one wall, but there was nothing on it except the weapon which only a short time ago had been fired at her.

  The room had one large window and a few smaller ones on each wall. Outside, the world was still the same, a countryside emerging from winter. The sun was climbing higher in the sky. Soon it would be midday, and the heat would help the snow melt to fill the rivers and streams running south to the sea. In the hillside shadows some of the snow would remain almost till summer, holding out to the last.

  Jenna sat up, and still the metallic figure did not move. Slowly she stood up and felt her side. There was no pain where the thing had entered her body. It had only made her sleep.

  She faced the metal creature. Suddenly he started clicking again and gesturing at her with his arms. There was something pathetic about the gestures. Jenna thought of the creature as a “he,” but now the metal being seemed like a mother trying to explain something to a wayward child. She shook her head and opened her hands, wondering if the thing would understand.

  The clicking grew more rapid. The metallic figure moved toward her. She stepped back, looking around frantically for a door.

  Suddenly she ran past him toward the other wall. A portion of it slid back and she felt the air from outside rush in. She was outside in a moment, running across soft melting snow, the sun in her face.

  She turned her head briefly and saw the gleam of the metal one as he raised his weapon and fired. Again something entered her body and she was drawn down into darkness. . . .

  Ropes bound her when she regained consciousness. Her captor was kneeling over her, clicking insistently.

  “What do you want?” she cried at the creature in frustration.

  The clicking stopped. The creature stood up and regarded her with empty glassy eyes.

  “I’m not an animal. I can speak,” she said. “All you seem able to do is click like a fool. Our children make better sounds.” She spat on the floor near his feet. “Let me go!”

  There was no clicking this time.

  Somehow she felt that he was embarrassed by her words, just as she was puzzled by him. Obviously he had tied her up only to keep her from getting away. If he had wanted, he could have killed her by now or taken her as a captive to his people. He was alone, just as she was. Perhaps he was like her, tolerated by his people but forever unaccepted.

  He had been trying to speak to her, but his words and way of speech were different. It was strange to think of him in the way she would about another human being. But there was something manlike and intelligent inside that metal body. For a moment she wondered if it might not be a man wearing a strange outer garment for protection, but she rejected the thought. A man would have spoken as she did.

  He left her bound all afternoon. He stood and watched her, listened to her speak and never once replied with anything more than a series of clicks. He clicked slowly, he clicked rapidly, but nothing made any sense to Jenna.

  Outside, the progress of spring was halted by the coming night. The pine trees cast solid shadows across the refrozen snow. Stars began to appear in the darkening day; cold incandescent points burning in a realm beyond all understanding; lanterns hung by giant beings in some place beyond the world. She imagined dark human shapes coming up to the windows and breaking in to rescue her.

  The man-without-flesh suddenly walked up to one of the nooks in the wall, slid inside and shut the hatch after himself.

  She was alone, helpless in the ropes that bound her. She tried to imagine what the nooks could be for. Were they for sleep, or some kind of rest? A wolf howled outside, and she feared that it would come close to the door which opened by itself, and it would let the animal in.

  But in a moment the hatch in the nook opened and the metal one slid out, slowly, almost as if he had been changed somehow. He came up to her and started to loosen the ropes. He was silent as he worked.

  “Once . . . did . . . you . . . rule . . . the world?” he asked. She recognized the words, but they were spoken in a way that reminded her of the clicking. They seemed to whir and clatter as the metal one uttered them. “I . . . learned . . . from . . . your sounds . . . and my memory vault . . . and from certain remains . . . of information in the mother computer of Central Agency.” He was getting better even as he spoke, she noted. “But . . . you must tell me words when I need. . . .”

  When the ropes were off, she stood up. “My name is Jenna,” she said, pointing to herself.

  “. . . Suranov,” he replied, “. . . robot. . . .”

  The twinges of liking she had felt for the robot grew stronger in her mind. “There are stories,” she went on, “that metal men were made by men of flesh, and men of flesh were made by the god of nature, against whom we sinned. And we were humbled.”

  “Then . . . we are brothers . . . sisters,” Suranov said, “and we should help you. The old superstitions are false. Men and robot . . . are minds . . . in different shapes.”