STARTING COURSE - Arthur Sellings

'Good afternoon, sir. Mr Trendall? I'm from Android Bank.'

Trendall looked past the visitor, looking for - what? - a gyrotruck, a crate? Then he realised. This was it - him. He looked down at the neat bag in the young man's hand, then up past trim slacks and jerkin of dark grey to the fresh, strangely new, face.

'Uh - well, come in.'

He was conscious that his voice sounded hollow. Hell, it wasn't his fault. Just how did you welcome an android into your family?

He showed the young man into the lounge and called his wife in from the kitchen where she'd hidden herself. She entered nervously.

'Oh, May, this is our guest, Mr -'

Trendall felt suddenly even more awkward, and cursed both that and the fact that he'd been pressured into this. He was a solid twenty-second century citizen, integrated in his job and in his social sector, and unused to feeling awkward. The schmooze about that being the very reason he'd been selected! He hadn't swallowed that - no sir. But how about the thinly-veiled threats of penalties, down-grading of status? He had the kids to think of, hadn't he? But he was beginning now to regret desperately that he hadn't made a stand.

The young man spoke - in the same careful, rather flat, tone in which he had announced himself. 'Just call me Eddie. I do have a surname - A hyphen Smith. A for android, of course. But that's only for the records. A surname is rather superfluous in my case, don't you think?'

Trendall felt oddly grateful. That seemed to put the matter in perspective somehow. His wife said, 'Oh dear, yes, why of course -' He shot her a meaningful look.

'Well then - uh - Eddie. Take a seat.' He noticed now the curious correctness with which the visitor moved. They all sat down. There was an awkward silence.

'Perhaps you'd like to freshen up,' May blurted.

Was that the right thing? Trendall wondered. Did they? Have need to, that was?

'No, thank you, ma'am. I've come straight from the Bank.'

* * * *

Heck, thought Trendall, he says it as if he had just stepped out of the vat!

That was how they bred them, the man from the Bank had said. Up from single artificial cells, emerging as a human being - or a damn good copy. Forget that, the official had said - treat him just as an ordinary, if immature, human. They had given him a basic education. Now he had to live with a family for six months. A finishing course, the official had said with a slight smile.

May tried again. 'Would you like some tea?'

'Yes, thank you, ma'am,' said the young man, to Trendall's surprise. May heaved a visible sigh of relief and went out to the kitchen. Trendall felt less constrained now. He could talk to the other, man ... as it were ... to man.

'How many of you are there?'

'Of me? Oh androids, you mean? About fifty, I think. I was in a class of twenty-five. There was one other class. I think we're the only bank so far in the world.'

'What I can't understand,' Trendall confessed, 'is why -'

He faltered, realising that that was one question he couldn't ask - why there was need for androids, anyway. As well ask an ordinary man why he thought he had a right to live!

'Why the Bank sent me here?' the young man suggested.

'Why, yes, that's just it.' That was the second time the android Eddie, he'd have to get used to calling him that - had helped him out. Perhaps it wouldn't be so difficult after all.

'Because my life has been all theory so far. The syllabus at our school would probably strike you as odd. We get the three Rs, naturally. But basic reflexes, that's one early course. Then advanced reflexes, speech modulation, social orientation, they're a few of the others. You see, we're fully intelligent when we - come out. An ordinary human as an infant learns as it develops, by experience, trial and error. We're taught everything, in capsule courses. With us there's no time for experience.'

This was a chance, a clue. 'Time? Why, what's the hurry?'

But the chance disappeared, or was it side-stepped? 'No hurry. It's just because of the way we're made. The point is, after the basic courses, we have to gain real human experience. We have to learn how to adjust to people, to learn the right thing to do or say.' His voice became suddenly earnest. 'So, please, if I say or do the wrong thing, please don't blame me too much. I'll try to learn.'

Trendall felt touched and embarrassed simultaneously.

'Why, sure, son ... I - you --' Heck, ordinary human kids weren't as eager to please as this. They were on their own feet by eight, going their own way - too much their own way, he thought sometimes. And how old was this one - about eighteen, nineteen?

May came in with the tea and handed it round.

'By the way, son,' Trendall asked, 'how old are you?'

'Five,' the other said simply.

Trendall spluttered into his teacup. That was another one I shouldn't have asked, he thought ruefully. Eddie seemed quite unconcerned as he sipped his tea. But what could you say to follow that one? Really? Or You're a big lad for your age?

* * * *

He didn't have to worry, because Kathy, sixteen and breathless, came bouncing in just then. She pulled up short when she saw their visitor. Eddie rose.

'This is Eddie, our guest I told you about,' Trendall said.

Kathy, in shimmering kneelength pants and cape, just stood there and burst out laughing.

Eddie looked desperately from Trendall to his wife. He saw no help there, only a scandalised look focused on their daughter.

But Kathy only went on laughing.

'I - I think I'll go and unpack,' Eddie said quietly.

'I'll show you your room,' said May. They went upstairs hurriedly.

'You'll have to excuse Kathy,' May said as she showed him into the little spare room. 'I don't know what's wrong with kids these days,' she added as she left him.

Eddie unpacked his change of clothes, his books, then sat down on the bed. Would he get to understand people? They were polite, as anxious obviously to accommodate themselves to him as he to them. Then this curious girl behaved the way she did. Ah well, he had a job to do. He mustn't let such things deflect him. He opened his books and got down to study.

A short while later there came a knock on his door.

'Come in,'

The door opened, just wide enough to admit a slim form. It was Kathy.

He smiled - yes, that was the required thing.

'I came to apologise.'

'That's all right.'

'Is that all? Is that what you're told to say?'

'I'm not told to say anything. I'm just told to try and fit in. Why, what should I say?'

'You're funny. You should be annoyed and ask me why I laughed.'

'Should I? Then, why did you laugh?'

'It was Dad calling you Eddie.'

'But that's my name.' He got the point. 'Why, do you think a number would be better?'

Quite suddenly and shockingly she burst into tears. He didn't have a clue what to do. He had never met tears before. All he could do was wait for her to stop.

She did, as suddenly as she had begun.

'Trust me! I never start off right with anybody. I was determined to with you. I made it a test, because - because you're different. There I go again!' She gesticulated with both hands above her smooth black hair as if tearing it up by the roots.

'It's all right,' Eddie said. 'I am different.'

'But don't you see?' she burst out. 'You can say that. But it doesn't make me right. And we're all of us different. It's everybody trying to make out that we're not that gripes me.' She shrugged her shoulders. 'But no amount of talking now can put it right. I'll try and make a fresh start - but not now. I'll have to wait.'

And, turning, she fled, banging the door after her, leaving Eddie standing there, utterly confused. After a long moment he went back to his books. Mathematical symbols he could understand; if he couldn't, they would yield to his searching. But human beings!

* * * *

Despite his misgivings, Eddie gradually settled in. An absolute lack of communication reigned between him and Kathy, but since they only met at meal times that was no great problem. He thought it best to make no effort himself. In spite of her outburst in his room that first day, Kathy seemed well integrated and popular with a wide circle of friends. She was out every evening, to parties or tennis or to the Free Fall Drome - while he studied or watched TV with the family. Once Mrs Trendall suggested she take Eddie to the Drome with her party. He was pleased because it was one of several little indications that he was getting to be accepted. All the same he was relieved when Kathy ducked out by saying it was club night.

Mr and Mrs Trendall seemed much less complex characters than their daughter. TV, drinks, a few friends in, seemed the round of their life. Eddie was introduced to the friends, who seemed as easy-going - and faintly bored - as the Trendalls. He learned to differentiate between them, to laugh at their standard jokes, to serve them the drinks they preferred. None of them showed any curiosity about him or mentioned his background - and Eddie had an idea that his host had never told them. By now he had recognised Mr Trendall as a man who took the easy way.

With the other member of the Trendall family he got off on the right foot immediately. That was Steve, who had been away at the jetball finals in Paris the day he'd arrived. Steve was twelve and his hobby was making midget two-way TV sets. As Eddie was not only studying electronics but also possessed a keen eye and a deft hand, it was a natural.

* * * *

Steve never asked him questions - not personal ones, anyway. But he asked him plenty on math and lattice equations and micro-junctions - and listened - and talked. That was the main thing. Eddie learned when to accept a statement straight, when to read the opposite, when to know it was in code for something entirely unrelated. Most important of all, he began himself to ask questions.

'What are you going to do, Steve, when you leave school?' he asked one day. He was over half-way through his stay with the Trendalls by then.

'Oh, join the ranks of the button pushers,' Steve said casually.

'Is that what you want to do?'

'That's all anybody can do, isn't it? Boy, it makes me cackle. We work our brains to the bone, getting our heads stuffed with a lot of facts - just so we can read what's on the right button!'

'But won't you go into electronics?'

Steve shrugged. 'Probably - but in industry it's all done by robot mechanisms - self-repairing ones. I'll be responsible - if I get that far - for one tiny bit that won't make much sense at all on its own. I know, brother.'

He suddenly grinned. 'Hey, why'd you get me started on this? I'll settle for what I can. Didn't you learn history? People have been working for ages to get what we've got now. I'm not complaining.'

* * * *

He sounded very mature for a twelve-year old, but his next words were more in keeping. 'Gosh, I'm just waiting for my first pay cheque. I'm gonna go straight out and get me a stereo tube. What are you going to do, Eddie?'

'When I get my first pay cheque?'

'No, crazy. When you finish studies.'

'I'm listed for colonisation.'

'Wha-at?' Steve waved a hand. 'You mean out there?'

'One or another of the outposts.'

'Rather you than me. I've been up to the moon. Great - for once. Real free fall and, boy, the stars! Fine for astronomers, I guess, but catch me living out there! Strictly twentieth century.'

'But there's some interesting stuff out there. Creatures, landscapes.'

'I can see it all on TV. Anyway, I wouldn't want to spend the best years of my life on some weird mudball back of nowhere. As I see it, there's the grind of school, then before you know where you are you get hooked by some dame and settle down in a dinky little box like this. You've only got a few years really to live.'

That seemed to settle that. But Steve suddenly looked at Eddie in a way he never had before. 'Is that why you people were made - to go out there?'

'I guess so. That's what we're being used for, anyway.'

'Used for!' Steve exploded. 'You take it lying down, just like that? But you've got rights, man. You're a human being.'

'Thank you, Steve,' Eddie murmured. Then, in a more normal tone,

'But I want to go. You see, people made me. Anything I can do is only a small repayment of that debt.'

Steve looked horrified. 'Nobody owes anybody anything. Hey, I bet they planted that feeling in you when they made you.'

'I don't think so. It seems natural to me. If your father was in danger, wouldn't you go to help him?'

'I guess so.' Steve grimaced. 'But heck, he's too careful. He'd never get in danger. But that's beside the point. I think you chaps ought to make a fight against being forced. Lead a revolt, that's it! Want any help?'

'No thanks,' Eddie laughed.

When he left Steve's den he went to his own room and got out his books. But he was in no mood to study. His chat with Steve had unsettled him. He went over to the window and looked out.

They were like boxes, the thousands of little houses stretching to the horizon, punctuated by skyscraper blocks pointing up to the sky. A few gyros flitted about in the twilight like dragon-flies. Everywhere, even in the graceful gyros, men made little boxes for themselves. And yet, out there, becoming visible now as the sky darkened, lay the stars.

He thought of what Steve had said - you could see it all on TV. And it seemed wrong, terribly wrong for a twelve-year old. Yet Steve was ready to help him revolt!

Eddie smiled sadly. Steve, and probably all the other young people like him, had plenty of spirit, but it seemed as if it was all... kind of turned in.

The midget TV bleeped then. He switched it on without turning from the window, and said, 'Hi, Steve.'

'It's not Steve, silly. It's me.'

He turned. It was Kathy, her big eyes appealing in the tiny colour screen.

'Can I come and see you?'

'Sure.'

The screen faded. A moment later she came dashing into his room.

'I just heard from Steve. I -'

Eddie smiled. 'Come and sit down. Or you'll fall over your feet again.'

'Thanks. I don't think I will this time. But is that right what Steve told me, that you're going into space?'

'Yes. Why, do you want to join Steve's revolt?'

She tossed her head and said, 'Steve,' with all the contempt of a sixteen year old for a twelve. 'Man, is he wet behind the ears!' Her big eyes became grave. 'Eddie, can I come out there with you?'

He gaped at her.

'Why not? If it's good enough for you -' She winced. 'There I go again. But can I, Eddie, can I?'

'I don't know. But are you serious?'

'Never been more in my life. When Steve told me it all came flooding in on me. It's all wrong that it should be put on - people like you. Ordinary people should go.'

'I don't think enough ordinary people want to go. But, Kathy -' he reached out and took her hand - 'that's not the real reason, is it?'

She looked down at his hand.

'That's just for friendship,' he murmured.

She smiled. 'I know. You are nice, at that. No the reason I said, that's part of it. But the main thing is, I want like hell to get away.'

'Steve says it's the best year's of anyone's life.'

'Then why waste it here, mouldering? On this world you can't get away from people enough. I don't like people that much.'

'But, Kathy, are you sure - but this is difficult - I don't want us to get snarled up again. We seem to be understanding each other -'

'Please say it.'

'Well, are you sure this isn't just a phase? I mean, being young, having trouble adjusting?'

'Sure. I spend all my time adjusting. But is it worth it, adjusting to a lot of creeps?'

'I couldn't give an opinion on that. Nobody can be - what you call them

- to me. Anyway, is that enough reason to want to go off to somewhere entirely new and strange, leaving everything behind?'

'It's the same for you, isn't it?'

'No. I don't have a home, for one thing, not a permanent one. Nor parents. In any case, Kathy, I'm sure you're too young to be allowed to go on your own.'

'Well, I'm going, you see. Watch out, you'll be coming round the mountain on Sirius Four and you'll bump right into little old me.'

* * * *

Eddie got up next morning, feeling ten feet high. He was doing what he had been sent here to do - making contact with people, learning how they felt. And they knew now what his purpose was.

The feeling didn't last long. Steve was moody. As for Kathy, the barriers were obviously down between them, but now he seemed to be included with her in some conspiracy. She winked at him over the breakfast table and giggled and generally behaved in a fashion that seemed decidedly odd.

And seemed so not only to Eddie. He caught her parents looking at her and then at each other with perplexity. As for Steve, his sister's antics or was it only that? - made him leave his breakfast and slam out of the house long before he had to catch the gyrobus for school.

The atmosphere lasted several days before things came to a head. Eddie was in his room, studying, when a knock came at the door.

'Come in,' he called, expecting Kathy. She had been a frequent visitor these evenings. She hadn't mentioned another word about space. She had just chattered and clowned - and he had found her highly amusing.

But it was Mr Trendall, looking untypically perturbed. He wasted no time coming to the point.

'Look here. What's going on between you and Kathy?'

'I - I don't understand, sir.'

'Don't you? Then what's all this nonsense about her wanting to go off with you into space?'

'That was her idea, not mine. I told her it couldn't be done.'

'No? Well, she's made an application. I can veto that. But what kind of hold have you got on the girl?'

'Hold? I still don't understand. I haven't influenced Kathy.'

'Maybe you don't think so, but it's pretty plain you have. Come on now, what have you and Kathy been up to?'

'Nothing. It wasn't forbidden for Kathy to come and talk to me, was it?'

'Only talk? You think I'd believe that? Kathy's an independent girl. I never question her choice of friends, but' - Trendall shook - 'I'm not having her messing around with a damn android.'

Eddie got to his feet slowly, but said nothing. He just stood there, looking at Trendall. Finally he said, 'I'd better leave.'

* * * *

Trendall made no answer, nor did he meet Eddie's gaze. He had plainly said more than he had intended.

'But before I do,' Eddie said, 'let me tell you two things. First, I'm not leaving because I'm offended. I'm not, nor could I be allowed to leave on those grounds. I know I'm different, so you can call me what you like. And that's the second point, there couldn't be anything between Kathy and me.'

He knew what Trendall meant - not because he'd had a course ... that would have been superfluous - but because he'd learned a lot in the past few months, even if a lot of it had been secondhand, from TV.

'Why not?' Trendall said gruffly. 'Because you've got orders to behave yourself? I don't take much notice of that. And don't tell me you're too young - you said yourself your kind come out fully developed.'

'That's the point - not in that respect. Nor will I ever be. That's the only real difference between us and real humans - we don't breed.'

Trendall's eyes jerked up to meet Eddie's for a shocked moment. He looked away again, muttering something inaudible, then groped for the door. Eddie heard his footsteps descend the stairs.

He turned and began methodically to pack. There was nothing else to do, no stopping now to wonder just how he had failed. He didn't have instructions as to what to do in this case - it obviously hadn't been expected of him - but there was only one thing for it. Report back to the Bank.

But he had accumulated things since he had come here - more books, the little TV which Steve had given him, the jerkin Mrs Trendall had spun for him, things too personal to leave behind, even if he were leaving under a cloud. They added up to more than he could pack in the single small bag he had brought. He would have to go down and ask if he could borrow another one.

He heard footsteps on the stair again. Mrs Trendall came in.

'You can unpack,' she said firmly. 'Tom told me. I'm dreadfully sorry. So's Tom, more than he can say. It makes his accusations about you and Kathy seem pretty horrible.'

'All the same, Mrs Trendall, perhaps I ought to leave. I've caused you all too much upset.'

'You'll do no such thing. Perhaps we were due to be upset. Perhaps it will do us good. Perhaps it would do everybody a bit of good. We all go on our little way, thinking all's right with the world. Nobody asks any sacrifices of us. We think it's all handed to us on a plate.

'Then somebody like you turns up. You've been brought into this world just to do a job that nobody else wants to do - none of us ordinary people who've got everything to live for and be thankful for. And when one of our own kids realises that fact before we do and wants to take her share, all we can do is turn it into something nasty.'

This forceful speech was quite unlike the mild self-effacing manner that Eddie had come to regard as normal in Mrs Trendall. He certainly had started something!

'No, Eddie - you've opened my eyes. And Kathy's going into space, I can promise you that, and if she's too young to go on her own, then I'm going with her?'

* * * *

May spoke truer than she knew, and certainly more than Eddie could have ever guessed.

A few days later it was Steve who was deputed to tell Eddie the news.

'We're all coming with you, Eddie! Dad just got the papers from the Colonisation Board. Procyon Three, leaving on the twenty fifth.'

'Wha-at! That's great! But - I can't believe it. Kathy - yes. And your mother. But your dad - I can't see him wanting to go.'

Steve grinned. 'Kathy and Mom are a combo even I couldn't resist. And Dad's not such a stick-in-the-mud after all, it seems. He's the keenest of any of us now.'

'But you, Steve, now about you? The best years of your life remember?'

Steve grinned even wider. 'I've grown up since then. And I've been reading up on Procyon Three. It's got a very near satellite. We could have fun bouncing stuff off that!'

'You bet!' said Eddie.

* * * *

After that, it was all rush, getting ready for the big day. Clearing up, choosing what to take and what to leave behind. A hundred things - forms to be filled in, shots to get. Eddie was told that shots weren't necessary for him. That should have made him suspect something, but he just accepted it as being due to his different physical make-up.

As it was, when the big day dawned and they took a gyrocab for the spaceport, he was unprepared.

They were about to leave the control building for the great ship, waiting in the middle of the ferroconcrete field, when an official in the grey of Android Bank stepped out of nowhere and took Eddie by the arm.

'Can I see you for a moment?'

'Of course.' Eddie gestured to the Trendalls. 'Go on. I'll see you on board.'

'Sit down, Eddie,' said the official. 'I've got a shock for you. You're not going.'

Eddie stared at him. 'Wha - what do you mean? How about those people?'

'This is only the first time,' the official said gently. 'We had to play it like this. It won't be so hard the next time and the time after that. You see, it's not you we want in space.'

He nodded in the direction of the four Trendalls, their figures tiny now against the huge bulk of the starship. 'It's them, and other people like them.'

'You mean - it was a kind of trick?'

'If you like - but one played in the best of interests. We've reached a danger point. It was bad enough when man had pushed out to the frontiers and there was nowhere left to push out to - on the eve of the Space Age. They had the opposite kind of problem then. But by the time the frontiers were open again - wide open - men had got too comfortable. And that was infinitely worse. Because it seemed there was nothing that could be done about it. If there's a pressure it will eventually break out. But how to create a pressure when none exists?

'They tried selling the idea of colonisation. That wasn't successful enough. Money, status, meant nothing to people because they didn't see the colony worlds as places where they could enjoy either. Oh, we could always get the wrong types, the ones who couldn't make a go of things here and couldn't on any other world. No, it was ordinary people like the Trendalls that were needed out there.

'Now, we had the know-how to make your kind - but to what end?

Then somebody had the idea. This idea. You see, Eddie your job wasn't really to adjust to people - it was to disadjust them. Not so much your finishing course as their starting course.'

* * * *

Eddie got up and looked out of the plexiglass windows. The Trendalls had been swallowed up in the ship. Now the massive port was closing on them.

'But what will they think? Of me? My kind? Couldn't I even have said goodbye to them?'

The official laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Believe me, this is the best way. There's a note on board for them from the Bank, making excuses. They've only signed on for a three-year term to begin with, anyway. And they won't have any regrets, I know that.'

Bells rang stridently, once, twice. It was the departure signal. The ship began to glow greenly as the drive generators started up.

Eddie's throat felt suddenly tight. 'But why couldn't I have gone with them?'

The official smiled. The ship was lifting now.

'Because you're too valuable, son. Look at that ship. You cost considerably more than that did. And you're considerably more important. You've notched the first score in the campaign - one out of one, a hundred per cent so far. If we can keep up that record well soon have enough people out there to make the colonies self-sufficient. By that time your job will be done. You'll be free to join your friends out there if you want. And the ones that come after.'

The great ship was suspended fifty feet up now, supported in a green glowing web. Then, so fast that the eye could not catch it, it was gone, leaving only a red after-image that soon died.

Eddie stood there, feeling that a piece of him had died too, gone with the Trendalls out beyond the daylight of this world, out into the black distances. Would it always be like this, a piece of him dying every time?

The official had said that next time it would be better. But would it, now. that he knew his purpose? Wouldn't it be all the harder? And he realised now just how much more he had to learn - that for him, as for the Trendalls, the starting course had only just begun.