TITLE FIGHT

Originally published in Fantastic Universe, December 1956.

The sounds from above were dim in the dressing room. Over his head, between him and the thousands of fans, were the tons of concrete, robot-made concrete. Man conceived but robot made.

He looked down at his hands, his strong, short-fingered hands. Complete with fingerprints—but of protonol. Who’d know it, to look at them? In man’s image, he was made. In God’s image, man was made, if one believed in that, any more. In man’s image, he was made, but not with man’s status.

His name was Alix 1340, which meant only that he was the thirteen hundred and fortieth of the Alix type. The short, broad Nordic type. In about twenty minutes, he was due in the ring. He was fighting for the middleweight championship of the world.

Joe Nettleton had dreamed that one up. It had been born in the verbiage of his daily syndicated sports column, nurtured by the fans’ clamor, and fanned into reality—by what? Animosity? These robots were coming up in the world, getting too big for their britches. Nick Nolan would show this Alix his place.

Nick was the champ, a man, made in His image. He butted and thumbed and gouged and heeled. His favorite target was the groin. But he was a man. Oh, yes, he was a man. A champion among men.

Manny came in. His real title was Manuel 4307, but robots like to forget the numbers. He was Manny, Alix’s manager and number one second. A deft and sharp and able robot, Manny.

He said, “I thought it would be better if we were alone. No fans, especially. And I’ve had a bellyful of sports writers.”

“Even Joe Nettleton?” Alix asked. “Joe’s on our side, isn’t he?”

“It’s hard to say. Do you ever wonder about him, Alix?”

Alix didn’t answer, right away. He knew there were robots who ‘passed’, went over to the status line and lived as humans. He didn’t know how many there were, and he often wondered about them. In every robot brain, there was a remote-controlled circuit breaker. They could be stopped with the throwing of a switch at the personnel center. There was a well-guarded office and a man on duty at that center twenty-four hours of every day.

Now Alix said, “I never thought much about Joe, either way.”

“What have you been thinking?” Manny asked.

“I’ve been thinking,” Alix said slowly, “that we fight man’s wars and pulverize his garbage and dehydrate his sewerage, but we’re not citizens. Why, Manny?”

“We’re not human. We’re not—orthodox.” Manny was watching him closely as he spoke.

“Not human? They feed us Bach and Brahms and Beethoven and Shakespeare and Voltaire in our incubation period, don’t they? And all the others I’ve forced myself to forget. Does this—this soul come from somewhere outside the system?”

“I guess it does. They don’t feed us much religion, but I guess it comes from God.”

“And what’s He like?”

“It would depend upon who you ask, I guess,” Manny said. “Sort of a superman. From Him they get their charity and tolerance and justice and all the rest of their noble attributes.” Manny’s laugh was bitter. “How they love themselves.”

“They’re so sure about everything else,” Alix said, “but not very sure of their God. Is that it?”

“That’s about it. I heard one man say He watches when a sparrow falls. I guess we’re less than the sparrows, Alix.”

There was a silence, and then Manny put a hand on Alix’s shoulder. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes, and I’ve got a million things to say. Maybe I should have said them earlier.”

Alix turned at the gravity of Manny’s voice. His lumagel eyes went over Manny’s dark face, absorbing his rigid intensity. Whatever it was that was coming, it was more important than the fight.

Manny said quietly, “Win this one, and blood will run in the streets, Alix.”

“Human blood?”

“White man’s blood. We’ve got the Negro, and the Jap, and the Chinaman and all the rest of them who got their rights so recently. And what kind of rights have they got? Civil, not in the people’s hearts. You think those races don’t know it? We were talking of their God, Alix. Well, the robots have one, too. His name is Alix 1340.”

“Manny, you’ve gone crazy.”

“Have I? Joe Nettleton’s one of us, Alix. This was his scheme, and the four men who run the switch at the personnel center; they’re ours, too. Top robots. Their I.Q.s all crowding two hundred. We’ve got the brains, Alix, and the man power. We’ve got the combined venom of a billion non-whites. And now we’ve got you.”

“A pug. What kind of god would I make? You’re off the beam, Manny.”

“Am I? Did I ever give you anything but the straight dope? They adore you, Alix. You’ve been a model to them. You could be their king, if you say the word.”

“You’ve been setting this up, you and Joe Nettleton? This fight tonight’s the crisis? You’ve been building toward tonight.”

“But it takes a front man, a symbol. You’re the only one who can be that. You’re the only one they’d all back.”

Alix looked again aft his hands, the hands that had taken him to the first mixed fight in history, to a title fight. ‘Man Versus The Machine’ most of the sports scribes had labeled it, though not Joe Nettleton. Machine? A machine that had assimilated Voltaire? A machine that had listened to Brahms?

What differentiates man from his machines? Supremacy? Supremacy would be established tonight. No, it wasn’t physical supremacy. And there were robots far beyond man’s mental powers.

The spark, then, the spark from their God? How did they know they had it? In all the wrangling mysticism that had gone through so many directed misinterpretations, where could they find their God?

“Thinking it over?” Manny asked. “Why so quiet, Alix?”

Alix’s grin was saturnine. “Believe it or not, I was thinking of God.”

“Their God?”

Alix frowned. “I suppose. Their’s and the sparrows’.”

There were three spaced knocks at the door. Manny said, “Joe Nettleton. He wants to talk to you. We’ve got about eight minutes, Alix.” He went to the door.

Joe Nettleton was tall, and pale and brown-eyed. The eyes should be lumagel, and Alix studied them, but could note no difference from those of a man.

Joe said to Manny, “He knows?”

Manny nodded.

Joe turned back. “Well—Alix—?”

“I don’t know. It’s—it’s—monstrous, it’s—” He shrugged his shoulders and pounded one hand into the palm of the other.

“You’re it, Alix. King, god, what you will. For six years, I’ve built you up—in their papers, in their minds. Clean, quiet, hard working Alix. And humble. Oh, the humility I gave you has made me cry, at times.”

Manny said in mild protest, “You didn’t have to build that angle much. Alix is humble. Alix is—he’s—he’s—” And the articulate Manny had no words.

Joe Nettleton’s pale face was cynical. He said, “The way you feel is the way they all feel—the black ones out there and the brown ones and the yellow ones.”

“They’ve got their rights,” Alix said.

“Have they? Take a look at the first twenty rows, ringside. You’ll see what rights they have, word rights, paper rights. But not in the hearts of men. Oh, the grapes of wrath are out there, Alix, beyond the twentieth row. Haven’t you any sense of history, of destiny?”

Alix didn’t answer.

Manny said, “He’s been thinking of God, he tells me.”

Joe Nettleton’s face was blank. “God? Their God?” He looked at Alix wonderingly. “This Superman they scare us with? You don’t eat that malarkey, do you, Alix?”

Alix shrugged, saying nothing.

“They don’t believe it themselves,” Joe protested. “It’s one of those symbols they set up, to make them superior. They ever tell you what He looks like? Oh, they give Him a prophet, sure, and the prophet gives them words to live by. Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t lust, don’t envy— Words, Alix, words, words, words— Judge them by their actions.”

Alix looked up. “I’m not—cut out to be a leader.”

“Yes, you are. And I cut you out, in their minds, with words. The brown ones read me and the black ones and the yellow ones, and I built you up, in their minds—and tonight they’ll wait for a signal from you.”

“A signal from me? Are you—what—?”

“A signal from you. To those in the crowd, to those watching on the video screens, the ones who are briefed and know about rioting, about how to steer a revolution. Think of the irony of it—man’s prejudice building the army of resentment and man’s genius building the machines that army can use to destroy man—white man. White man—first.”

“First—?” Manny said. “You’ve dreams beyond tonight, Joe?”

Joe smiled disarmingly. “I use too many words. That one got away. We can’t think beyond tonight, now.” He turned to Alix. “It’s not an involved signal, Alix. It’s just one word. The word is ‘kill’. From you it’s more than a word, it’s an order.”

There was a knock at the door, and the sono-bray above the door said “Time to go up. Time for the big one.”

All three were silent, and then Joe put a hand on Alix’s shoulder. “You can’t give the signal from your back, Alix. You’d better be standing up, when this one is over with.”

Alix looked at Joe, trying to read behind those brown eyes. Alix said, “I’ll be standing up. There’s never been a second I doubted that.”

They went out, and there was a clamor, a ring of scribes in the corridor beyond the showers. One of them voiced it for all of them, “What the hell is this, Manny? Joe a cousin, or something? How about a statement?”

Manny looked at them bleakly. “We hope to win, but we’re up against a superior being. It’s in God’s lap.”

Cynical men, but they resented the blasphemy—coming from a robot.

Joe said, “And Alix is his prophet. Who’s betting what?”

No answer. They stared at Joe, and some wrote down a few words. One of them looked at Alix.

“How about you, Alix? How do you feel?”

Alix the humble, the new day Uncle Tom, the subservient. Alix lifted his chin and didn’t smile. “Confident. I’ll win.”

“How?” another asked.

“Hitting him harder, and oftener. What’s he got but a hook and an iron jaw?”

“Guts,” one of them said. “You’ve got to hand him that, Alix.”

“I concede nothing,” Alix answered. “We’ll see, tonight.”

There were no further questions. They went down the long aisle that led to the bright ring, Manny and Alix and the other handler, who’d been waiting in the prelim boys’ shower room.

Eighty thousand people in the Bowl, a clear, warm night, and millions watching on the video screens around the globe. Video hadn’t hurt this one—this was history, a robot crossing the status line. They wanted to be a part of this.

The referee was black, Willie Newton. It would look like less favoritism, if the referee was black, reasoned the white man in their left-handed reasoning.

Bugs around the arcs, and big, ebony Willie in his striped shirt, waiting in the ring, smiling, just happening to be in Alix’s corner as he climbed through.

Willie bent, pretending to help part the ropes. Willie whispered, “You’ll get all the breaks you need, Alix.”

Alix came through and stood erect. “I don’t want a single break, Willie, just a fair shake. You can understand it has to be like that.”

“I can Alix. I’m sorry. About the name—just Alix? Or I could blur the rest.”

“Alix one-three-four-oh, not blurred. It’s my name.”

He turned from Willie then, acknowledging the thunder behind him, both hands high in salute. He could see the rows stretching out from ringside—the first twenty all white. Most of the thunder came from high in the stands.

And now the champ came down his aisle, his faded purple dressing robe across his bulky shoulders, his handlers a respectful few paces behind him.

Nick Nolan, the middleweight champion of the world. His ears were lumpy, his brows ridged with scar tissue. His round head centered on those bulky shoulders, apparently with no neck to connect them. A fringe of red hair and a brutal, thick featured face.

Made in His image?

Some words ran through Alix’s mind—“Is this the Thing Lord God made and gave—to have dominion over sea and land…?”

This was a hell of a time to be recalling Markham.

Nick came over to his corner, the false geniality on his face as phony as the gesture of a champ coming to the challenger’s corner.

Nick said, “Best—between us, huh?”

“The better,” Alix corrected him. “Keep them above the belt, Nick.”

Nick grinned. “Don’t I always? I came up the hard way, Alix.”

Alix said nothing, staring.

…When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world…

A man with a hook and an urge to combat. The hard way? Maybe. He’d taken enough punches to give him a lifetime lease on Queer Street. But he’d handed out more than he’d received. A spoiler and a mixer. A weight-draper and in-fighter and an easy bleeder.

Blood will run in the streets, Alix…

In the ring, Nick’s blood would flow, and further stain the spotted canvas. In the streets, the blood of Nick’s brothers would flow, in the streets around the world.

Title fight? Oh, yes.

The Irishman first, he’d come up through the ring to his grudging equality, and the Jew, then and the Filipino and the Negro and the Cuban and all the others who wouldn’t stay down. Who had their fists and their guts. Mickey Walker, Benny Leonard, Joe Louis—immortals all. Great men, great champs, great memories.

And he? Alix 1340? Different, a machine, no spark. He’d almost forgotten about no spark.

Nick’s manager came over to inspect the bandages on Alix’s hands, and then went back to his corner with Manny to inspect those on the battered hands of the champ.

Alix’s hands were clean lined, no breaks, no lumps. Alix was a scientific hitter, and his protonol was better than the natural product.

He watches the sparrows, Manny had said. A signal, Joe had said. I wish somebody would give me a signal, Alix thought. It’s too big for me.

The introductions, the numbers not blurred. The instructions, and Willie saying, “Clean tonight, Nick. I know you well, Nick. But this one is touchy, remember.”

“Ah, save it,” Nick told him. Champ, big man, Nick Nolan.

The buzzer and Manny’s brief pat on the shoulder. Rising, and flexing on the ropes, looking down into that sea of faces, white faces. The ones who held dominion over sea and land.

Bugs in the arcs, a hush on the crowd and the bell.

Alix turned and here came Nick, shuffling across, wasting no time, bringing the fight to the upstart.

Nick had a right hand, too, but it was clumsy. The hook was better trained. Alix circled to his left, away from Nick’s left, and put his jab easily to Nick’s nose.

There are sportswriters, Alix knew, who talked of a right hook, but a man would need to be a contortionist to throw it. Unless he was completely unorthodox. Or a southpaw.

Nick was neither. Nick had a right hand like a mallet, but it came from below or above, and was telegraphed by the pulling up of his right foot. Nick saved that for the time his opponent couldn’t see or react.

Nick came in with the hook, trying to slide under Alix’s extended left hand, trying to time the pattern of his feet to Alix’s circling, looking for the hole.

Alix peppered him with the left, and then saw the low left hand of Nick’s. Alix stopped circling—and tossed a sinking right.

It traveled over Nick’s left and found the button. Nick took two stumbling backward steps, and went down.

Resin dust swirled and the scream of the stands was like a single anguished cry.

Alix went to a neutral corner, shrugging his shoulder muscles loose, trying to still the sudden pounding of his heart. Nick had been knocked down before, often.

He took a full count, under the rules, but was on one knee at three. The big black semaphore of Willie’s right hand and then those hands wiping the gloves and Willie standing clear.

Nick stormed in. He got through Alix’s left, this time, and sent a looping right hand high. It missed, but it was meant to miss. Nick’s elbow smashed Alix’s mouth.

Rage, a red rage and they stood in the corner, trading leather.

The hook came in low, and pain knifed into Alix’s groin. In his aching blindness he could feel Nick’s feet groping for his, trying to find his instep.

Champion, model.

Alix grabbed, and hung on. This one he had to win. This one could be lost, right now.

Nick said, “Break it up, phony man. I can’t hit you when you’re hanging on.”

The big slap of Willie’s hand. Willie, playing it straight. Alix broke at the touch.

Alix broke—and Nick threw the right hand, on the break.

Foul? Of course, but Alix went down, his senses numb, his mind turning black. He lay on his face, not moving, the blackness moving through his body.

What’s this God like? It would depend upon who you ask. They ever tell you what He looks like? The blackness turned red, the red of blood, running in the streets. And there was suddenly a cross, and a dim figure and he heard Willie’s sonorous, “Five, six—”

He turned over at seven, was on one knee at eight and up at nine. And Nick came bulling in, both hands ready.

The bell.

He got to his corner without Manny’s help. The magic of Manny’s hands dug at his neck, bringing clarity. The ice, the other handler probing at his flaccid legs.

“I saw a cross, Manny.”

“Nobody’s crossing us, Alix. Don’t think, Alix. Here.” He gave him the water bottle.

Alix rinsed his mouth, and spit it out. “He’s rough, Manny. He knows all the tricks.”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t want to. I saw a cross when I was unconscious, Manny. A cross like you see on a church.”

“Don’t tell me about it. Get him, boy. Don’t try to mix with him, but get him, with that left, with your speed, with your brain. Get him.”

“I’ll try. But he’s not typical, Manny. They’re not all like Nick.”

“The hell they aren’t. He’s one of the better ones. Get him.”

The buzzer, the bell, and Nick.

Nick with the iron jaw, Nick with the hook and the bulging shoulders, Nick the champion.

Alix put the left into Nick’s face, but it wasn’t a jab. It was a straight left, with shoulder in it. It twisted Nick’s nose, and brought blood.

Nick was nettled, and he charged. He charged into a straight, sweet right hand that was delivered from a flat-footed stance. Nick wavered, and tried to grab.

Alix felt his strength pour back and the pattern of his feet was sure and planned. A left, a feint, a jolting right, moving around this hulk, this blundering knot of flesh and muscle, beating a tattoo on him, spreading the blood. Get him.

It looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood all over Nick’s face, and blood matting the curled, sweaty hair on his chest. Starting to look dazed, starting to wonder, the champ. The atypical man? He must be, he had to be, to have dominion over sea and land.

Why didn’t he go down? Couldn’t he see the pattern of it, the pattern Alix was tracing for him with his blood-soaked gloves? Why didn’t he go down? Why didn’t he quit?

He hadn’t quit by the end of the fifth round. Out there, those eighty thousand were silent. This was no fight, this was now murder. Why didn’t he quit?

Alix asked Manny, on the stool, before the sixth, “Why doesn’t he quit? He can’t win. Manny, I hate to hit him.”

“Don’t be a sucker. Don’t be a damned fool.” Manny’s voice was hoarse. “As long as there’s a spark of life in those bastards, they won’t quit. He’s dangerous yet Alix.”

A spark, a spark— Life? Cognizance? No, life, a spark of life.

In the sixth, Nick almost went to his knees, in the middle of the ring. But he got control, and stumbled toward Alix.

Alix came in fast and carelessly—and the earth erupted.

He’s dangerous, yet, Alix. There was no blackness this time, just the blood red. There was no cross. But a voice? “In the sky, in the sky—” Silence.

Get up, Alix. For the black and brown and red and yellow who are watching you, around the world, get up. You’re their hope, you’re their WORD. Up, to one knee, and up just under the wire.

Nick didn’t charge, this time. Wary and careful, he was, after the pasting he’d been taking. Let Alix make the mistakes, like the one he just had. Nick only needed one more.

Manny said, “Can you hit him, now? Still mourning for him, are you?”

Alix said, “I’m a machine, Manny. He can’t hurt me. I can hurt him, but he can’t hurt me.”

“That’s my boy.” Manny said. “I’m glad you know what side of the fence you’re on, finally.”

“I know my place,” Alix said. “I know my job.”

“That you do. Get him.”

He got him. They don’t quit, these men. Not while they’re conscious. Not while they’re alive. Alix hit him everywhere there was room to hit, with both hands, knocking him down four times in the seventh round.

Each time, Nick got up. And in the eighth, he came out to meet Alix walking into his doom, not flinching, not hiding, putting his crown on the line.

Supremacy? Nick had it, bastard though he was. But for how long? How long could he stay that dumb and still live?

Nick came out, his low hands a farce of a defense.

How long could he hold the animosity down with his arrogance and his brutality and his shoddiness? How much time did he have? Alix knew.

Nick came out for the eighth, and Alix hit him with a solid right hand. He didn’t set it up, or feint Nick into the spot, or hesitate. There wasn’t any need to.

He put all his weight and most of his bitterness into the button-shot that made him middleweight champion of the world.

Silence, a shocked silence at the history before them, and then, from the far seats, from the cheap seats, acclamation. The video cameras covered the ring, the crowd; the lights went on all over the huge bowl.

Manny hugged him, Joe Nettleton hugged him, and others.

In the far seats, no one moved. In the near seats, no one moved. Joe said, “The word, Alix.”

They were bringing the banked microphones over, the microphones that would carry the word all over the world.

The cameras trained on him. The word.

He looked at Joe, and Manny. He brought the mikes to mouth level, and moved back a bit. He said, “I won, tonight. I’ve no message for you. But someone has. It’s in the sky.”

Craning necks, a murmur, the cameras leaving Alix as the operators swung the huge machines toward the red letters in the sky.

Beside him, Manny gasped. Joe Nettleton stared, unbelieving, his mouth slack.

Red letters? Something like red, but luminous and miles high, and definite. The cameras were trained directly on it, now.

FIND YOUR GOD.

Manny said, “Alix—how— Are you, did you—? Alix, what in hell are you?”

“There’s more to it they don’t know,” Alix said. “It’s ‘find your God or your machines will kill you’. I don’t think there’s any need to tell them the rest if they obey the first.”

Manny said hoarsely, “But this message came through you? You’re a—”

“A prophet? Me, a machine, Alix 1340?”

Joe said, “You’re not sending out the other word?”

“Not yet. It’s not time.”

“How do you know,” Manny cut in. “How do you know if it’s time or not? And if their God wanted to send a message, why should he use a machine? Why should he use you?”

“Because,” Alix said, “no man would listen. And if they don’t listen, now, Manny, our time will come.… ”