The Complete Stories_ Volume 1 - Isaac Asimov [302]
The lights went up automatically as we stepped inside. Gellhorn didn't seem bothered by the car noise, but the three men with him looked surprised and uncomfortable. They had the look of the hired thug about them, a look that was not compounded of physical features so much as of a certain wariness of eye and hang-dogness of face. I knew the type and I wasn't worried.
it One of them said, "Damn it, they're burning gas." •I? "My cars always do," I replied stiffly.
"Not tonight," said Gellhorn. "Turn them off."
"It's not that easy, Mr. Gellhorn," I said.
"Get started!" he said. I stood there. He had his fist gun pointed at me steadily. I said, "I told you, Mr. Gellhorn, that my cars have been well-treated while they've been at the Farm. They're used to being treated that way, and they resent anything else."
"You have one minute," he said. "Lecture me some other time."
"I'm trying to explain something. I'm trying to explain that my cars can understand what I say to them. A positronic motor will learn to do that with time and patience. My cars have learned. Sally understood your proposition two days ago. You'll remember she laughed when I asked her opinion. She also knows what you did to her and so do the two sedans you scattered. And the rest know what to do about trespassers in general."
"Look, you crazy old fool—"
"All I have to say is—" I raised my voice. "Get them!"
One of the men turned pasty and yelled, but his voice was drowned completely in the sound of fifty-one horns turned loose at once. They held their notes, and within the four walls of the garage the echoes rose to a wild, metallic call. Two cars rolled forward, not hurriedly, but with no possible mistake as to their target. Two cars fell in line behind the first two. All the cars were stirring in their separate stalls.
The thugs stared, then backed.
I shouted, "Don't get up against a wall."
Apparently, they had that instinctive thought themselves. They rushed madly for the door of the garage. At the door one of Gellhorn's men turned, brought up a fist gun of his own. The needle pellet tore a thin, blue flash toward the first car. The car was Giuseppe.
A thin line of paint peeled up Giuseppe's hood, and the right half of his windshield crazed and splintered but did not break through.
The men were out the door, running, and two by two the cars crunched out after them into the night, their horns calling the charge.
I kept my hand on Gellhorn's elbow, but I don't think he could have moved in any case. His lips were trembling. I said, "That's why I don't need electrified fences or guards. My property protects itself." Gellhorn's eyes swiveled back and forth in fascination as, pair by pair, they whizzed by. He said, "They're killers!"
"Don't be silly. They won't kill your men."
"They're killers!"
"They'll just give your men a lesson. My cars have been specially trained for cross-country pursuit for just such an occasion; I think what your men will get will be worse than an outright quick kill. Have you ever been chased by an automatobile?"
Gellhorn didn't answer.
I went on. I didn't want him to miss a thing. "They'll be shadows going no faster than your men, chasing them here, blocking them there, blaring at them, dashing at them, missing with a screech of brake and a thunder of motor.-They'll keep it up till your men drop, out of breath and half-dead, waiting for the wheels to crunch over their breaking bones. The cars won't do that. They'll turn away. You can bet, though, that your men will never return here in their lives. Not for all the money you or ten like you could give them. Listen—"
I tightened my hold on his elbow. He strained to hear.
I said, "Don't you hear car doors slamming?"
It was faint and distant, but unmistakable.