The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cosmic Junkman, by Rog Phillips
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Title: The Cosmic Junkman
Author: Rog Phillips
Release Date: September 10, 2021 [eBook #66259]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSMIC JUNKMAN ***
After the war, Earth stored away its robot
armies or sold them for scrap--because fighting
machines were dangerous. But more deadly was--
THE COSMIC JUNKMAN
By Rog Phillips
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
December 1953
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Log Report_:--
_Fleet: Alpha Aquilae; 20,080 surviving ships. Flagship ROVER._
_Personnel: human;_
_Fleet Admiral William A. Ford, Vice Admiral Paul G. Belcross
robot;_
_2,649,366 (Ids. appended)_
_passenger: (human);_
_Generalissimo Vilbis (prisoner under w.c.a.)_
_Dates May 7, 4765; flight formation arrow, speed 1,700,000 m.p.s._
_Scheduled date of arrival at Earth: June 11, 4766_
_Distance from Earth on Earth-Aquilae axis: ten light years._
"Rummy," Vilbis said, reaching through the hand-hole in the inch thick
laminated glass wall of his prison and spreading his cards on the
table. His lips formed into the cruel haughty smile that had been his
trademark to billions of humans for almost half a century. His wide-set
black eyes mocked the other two players.
"Well, well," Paul Belcross smirked. "I see now why you lost the war,
Vilbis. Isn't that a six of diamonds in your heart sequence?"
The black eyes glanced down. The long-fingered hand began to retrieve
the cards, then paused. Vilbis' almost classic features darkened with
anger. With an effort he became calm. A secret inner amusement made
little lights in his eyes as he looked up at his two captors again.
"You know," Bill Ford said thoughtfully, "sometimes I think you
must have some kind of an ace up your sleeve. You don't seem at all
concerned that this is your last trip. The War Crimes Court--then death
by hanging." Bill frowned. "Could be you figured the angle I've always
worried about. The Federation is always too quick to demobilize the
robots after a war. Some day some punk like you is going to take that
into consideration. He's going to surrender, but have a reserve space
navy waiting until Earth is without defenses, then take over and win."
"Too bad I didn't think of that when I could have done something about
it," Vilbis said too cheerfully.
"Maybe you did think of it," Bill said. "When we get home I'm going to
suggest we keep the Aquilae Fleet mobilized for at least ten years."
"You know they won't do that," Paul Belcross said. "They're more afraid
of the robots than they are of attack. So am I, actually."
"We're just afraid of what they could do if they got free," Bill said.
"Their potential intelligence is greater than human. If they overcame
their built-in instinct for obedience to human command they could--why
think of what our two million robots could do!"
"Why all this discussion of robots?" Vilbis said. "They're just dogs.
Not even that. They were dogs for six months of their existence
before their brains were transplanted into synthegell fluid by the
mind transplant machine." His eyes took on a far away look. His voice
became regretful. "I had a hundred thousand scientists working on that
problem. If the mind of one dog could be transplanted into synthegell
without destroying the dog's brain there would be no limit to the
production of robot brain cartridges. If we could have licked that
problem I'd have won the war."
"If!" Paul spat. "You're a renegade Earthman. I'm putting in my
application to be the one to hang you as soon as we get home."
"How do you--" Vilbis clamped his lips closed and scooped up his cards.
"How do we know we'll get home?" Bill Ford said. "Is that what you were
going to say?"
Vilbis looked at his cards casually. "No," he said absently. "I was
going to say how do you expect to play cards and talk at the same time?"
A raucous blast exploded in the room. Bill and Paul stared at each
other in surprise. Vilbis smiled.
Bill leaped across the room to the cm board. He jabbed at buttons.
A giant screen lit up, showing a spaceship. Smaller screens lit up,
revealing robot ship commanders.
"Look at that ship, Paul," Bill said. "You know them all. Aquilanean,
Centaurian, Cygnian. It isn't any known type--and with a war just over,
there hasn't been time to mass-produce new types." He jabbed at a
button. "All ships," he said. "All ships. Defense formation five. Five.
Operation three. Three." He listened to the repeats.
* * * * *
Paul Belcross had leaped to the huge tri-di sphere and turned it on.
Seconds later both men, Vilbis forgotten but watching with bright eyes,
were studying the small dots in the tri-di. The flight formation in the
shape of a giant arrow was quickly changing shape as the fleet formed
a defensive sphere around the flagship and its human occupants. The
_Rover_ was the only bright blue dot. The others were red.
But now other dots were materializing at the outer fringe of the
tri-di, too many new dots to count. Approaching ships.
Across the room a voice from a loudspeaker was saying, "Eighty seconds
to contact. No response. No response."
"Another second and they'll be within range," Paul said.
"God!" Bill's voice exploded. His eyes were on the large area of the
tri-di where ships had abruptly ceased to exist.
"Something's wrong with the tri-di," Paul said. "No weapon could do
that."
"Nothing's wrong with the tri-di," Bill said sharply. "And we don't
have that kind of weapon. They're something alien. Have to be. Some
other galaxy. There's always been that possibility."
A rapidly repeated pip-pip-pip came from the cm board. Bill leaped to
it. A light, under a small screen showing a robot, was blinking. He
pressed the button. The robot saluted. His Id was stamped across his
chrome chest, with four gold stars after it. "We will be destroyed,
sir," it said. "Would suggest Flagship _Rover_ change course forty
degrees at eight o'clock and go on without fleet."
"You're giving orders?" Bill said, his face going pale and his eyes
narrowing--not at the impending defeat, but at this sign of independent
initiative in a robot.
"It's your only chance for survival," the robot said. "It must be done
at once."
"Place yourself under ship arrest and give me the next in command,"
Bill ordered sharply. The screen went blank. "That's mutiny!" he
shouted, unbelieving.
Vilbis, behind his glass wall, laughed aloud.
"Not mutiny," Paul said. "They are gone. All our ships are gone!" His
voice conveyed the incredulous horror in his mind.
In the tri-di there was only the bright blue dot, and the thousands of
approaching ships of the enemy.
The next instant the ship lurched violently.
"They're boarding!" Bill shouted. "But they aren't going to get Vilbis
back alive."
He leaped to a locker and opened it with clumsy fingers, bringing out
a g.i. raygun. He turned to leap toward the glass wall separating him
from Vilbis. Before he could take a step a large section of a bulkhead
vanished in smoke. For a brief instant Bill and Paul stared with
unbelieving eyes at what entered the room.
Then they died.
"Stop!" The word exploded from Vilbis's lips. He stared at the cooked
flesh that had been his captors. Then his eyes lifted to the jagged
hole in the bulkhead.
"You fools!" he spat. His lips curled with cold anger. "Where do you
hope to get two other humans now?"
* * * * *
The demobilization station trailed the Earth, a million and a half
miles behind and in the same orbit around the Sun. It was shaped like
a thick disc. At the moment there were five ships resting against
one surface of the station. Three of them were warships. One was a
Federation ship. The fifth was a giant freighter with _SURPLUS JUNK
CO._ painted on it in bold blue letters.
Each of the five ships was attached to the space station underneath its
hulk by short airlocks containing elevators. These led down into the
station where air pressure was kept at fifteen pounds.
Inside the station, robots were emerging from the elevators leading to
the three warships. The robots were all identical except for their Id
numbers across their metallic chests. Arms and legs of metal rods and
joints in almost exact duplication of human bones, torso shaped like a
metal box, short neck joint supporting a head that was little more than
two four inch glass lenses, two rod-microphones, and a small voice box.
The emerging robots moved at orders snapped by a human and marched
toward a building fifty yards away, where they lined up at attention
and became motionless.
Two humans moved swiftly down the line, behind the lined up robots. At
each robot one of them twisted a copper-colored disk in the robot's
back, carefully drew out a cylinder eight inches long and four inches
in diameter, and handed the cylinder to the other, who lowered it into
a plastic case. These cylinders were the brains of the robots. They
were destined for the Federal ship--and storage until the next war.
While the robot brain was being lowered into its plastic storage case
by the one man, the first lifted the now demobilized robot body and
placed it on a cart, already stacked high with similar bodies. The
immediate destination of these bodies was the junk company freighter.
If the robots were aware of what was about to happen to them as they
waited, they gave no indication, no protest. Their lens eyes were
directed straight ahead of them, unmoving--except for one robot.
The Id across its chest was 532-03-2615 followed by four gold stars.
Its head was turned just enough so that it could see down the line. Its
rod microphones were turned so that it could listen....
"That junkman gives me the creeps, Joe," the man placing brain
cylinders into plastic cases grumbled.
"That's because he's a creep, Mel. Here. Take this." He thrust a brain
cylinder at his companion.
"Hey! Careful!" Joe said, almost dropping it.
Mel chuckled and flipped the robot body, almost weightless on the
station here in space, carelessly to the top of the stack on the truck.
"Here comes junky now, Joe," he said.
"Don't damage the bodies. Don't damage the bodies." The figure that
approached, pushing an empty truck, wore a dirty and well worn civilian
suit that seemed even more decrepit in contrast to the neat military
uniforms. His skin was leathery. A pair of glasses hung on his hawkish
nose, their thick lenses magnifying the close-set eyes underneath, and
making them seem to lie on the inner surfaces. His lips were partly
open, but never seemed to move while he talked. "There was a cracked
lens on one," he accused.
"What's the matter, junky?" Joe grinned. "If we get a scratch on one
it's still two hundred pounds of scrap metal--or were you planning on
using the bodies?" He and Mel laughed.
"Who knows?" the junkman said. "I only follow my orders. No scratches.
No damage to the bodies. Who knows? Maybe they go into storage until
the next war." He reached with a dirty hand to clutch at Mel's lapel,
but didn't make it. "I'll show you," he said. "_Two_ of them are
damaged. Not worth seventeen credits."
"Can't stop now," Mel said. "We want to get done by quitting time. Joe
has a date."
"Come on," the junkman said. "You've got to look. I have to have
witnesses when I hand in my report on the carelessness of the military."
"Oh, all right," Mel said. He and Joe followed the dusty junkman around
the building.
The instant they were out of sight, 2615 moved, running swiftly around
the other end of the building. It reached a vantage point where its
lens eyes could watch the three figures when they emerged from the
elevator to the ship above.
It watched Joe and Mel return to their work. It waited until the
junkman had gone for another truckload of demobilized robot bodies.
Then, swiftly, it ran to the elevator. At the top it sent the elevator
back down, then faced the tiers of frames that filled the vast hold of
the ship. Most of them now held inert robot shapes.
2615 chose an empty rack and climbed in, lying face up. It looked no
different than any of the thousands of other forms.
It remained motionless. The junkman returned with load after load.
Eventually the hold was filled. Clanging and whirring noises told of
preparations for departure.
Acceleration pushed the robot deeper into the protective foam rubber of
its rack. It waited....
* * * * *
Fear. It began in the eyes of the cataloguer when his sorting machine
came to a stop on the Id card for 532-03-2615. It grew as a terrible,
animating force that drained blood from faces and made hands clumsy, as
the checking and rechecking on 2615 began. It spread through networks
of communication wires. It stopped at the borders of news release, lest
it spread over the world.
Fear organized itself, finally, settling into a pasty expression,
unnatural eyes, and drumming fingers. The expression and eyes and
fingers belonged to Carl Wilson, chief of the Demobilization staff. It
centered there, but its aura spread out over the backwash it had left.
Fear lurked in the hushed silence. Fear rode as an undertone in the
slightest sound, lay ready to spring from behind every door.
Larry Jackson felt it as he gave the receptionist his name.
Stella Gamble was oblivious of it as she pushed into the waiting room.
Larry looked at her and wished it was his day off and a girl like her
was with him. He wondered what her name was.
"I'm Stella Gamble," Stella said to the receptionist. "I've got to see
Mr. Wilson at once. My freighter is overdue with two million junked
robots. Something's got--"
"Will you please be seated, Miss Gamble?" the receptionist said firmly.
Then, "You may go right in, Mr. Jackson. Mr. Wilson is waiting for you."
It was then Stella and Larry looked into each other's eyes. Hers were
narrowed, sizing him up, guessing what he was and why he was there. His
were friendly, smiling.
"Thanks," he murmured to the receptionist. He went toward the door,
conscious of Stella's eyes following him. He went in.
"_There_ you are, Jackson," Wilson said, running fingers through his
iron gray hair in nervous relief. "You've guessed why--"
"Yes," Larry said.
Behind him the door opened violently. Sharp heels clicked on the floor.
"Mr. Wilson," Stella demanded. "I know why this man is here. You're
going to give him instructions to blast my freighter out of existence
the minute he can--"
"You're Stella Gamble?" Wilson said. "I've heard of you. Will you
please wait in the reception room until I finish with--"
"Larry Jackson," Stella pronounced the name. Her wide-set blue eyes
showed scorn. "The man who is going to kill one of my men and destroy
my ship and its cargo just to get at a robot."
"_Just_ to get at a robot?" Wilson said indignantly. "You must be out
of your head!" He picked up an oblong of paper on his desk and thrust
it at Larry. "The junkship has been traced three hundred million miles
out by routine radar. You can pick it up from there by ion tracking--we
hope. Don't take any chances. _Destroy that ship!_" His lips trembled.
"Even if the pilot is still on it. It's one life against...." He
didn't complete the thought.
"Against fear," Stella said. "You are all cowards. Afraid of a dog
because it could turn against you."
"Afraid of an _intelligence_," Wilson said wearily. His lips pulled
back in a weak grin. "So are you. You're just more afraid of going
broke."
Larry folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He turned toward the
door. Stella clutched his sleeve, stopping him. She spoke swiftly,
pleading. "Let me go with you. I'm capable. Give me a chance to go down
and reason with that robot. If it doesn't work...."
Larry looked at her upturned face, the lips that could smile or laugh
more naturally than pout, the wide-set eyes that could do things to
him at any other time. He thought, it's a shame I won't ever get the
chance. "Sorry, Miss Gamble," he said stiffly, "I'm on duty, and I'm
not permitted to take passengers with me."
He went on toward the door, feeling his sleeve tear at her nails as she
tried to hold him longer.
"It's very unfortunate--" Wilson said as Larry opened the door.
"If I can't go with him after my freighter I'm going after it on my
own!" Stella said as he closed the door.
Larry put his fingers to his lips for the benefit of the receptionist
and swiftly side-stepped to a filing cabinet where he stooped down out
of sight.
The next instant the door from Wilson's office burst open again,
banging against the wall. Stella's eyes searched the office. She ran to
the hall door, and out.
Larry bounded back into Wilson's office. Wilson said, "Whew!" and
mopped his brow, then pointed to his private entrance. Larry nodded and
left.
* * * * *
It was a world of hard whites and bottomless blacks, with the hard
whites so close they gave you the feeling you could reach out and
touch them. Then you blinked your eyes and they were holes in infinity
through which loneliness poured. That was space. Sure, there was the
Earth somewhere aft of the rockets' red glare, and the Moon, looking
like high-priced models against a velvet backdrop.
But you didn't look at them, because the stars were points on a tri-di
screen, and you were back in school working a problem in navigation and
hoping you didn't get a wrong answer.
You loved it--or you went crazy. Larry loved it. Or maybe it wasn't
love. It was like a woman. It was in his blood.
He stopped punching the keys of the calculator and used both hands to
press the studs controlling the gyro motors, watching the needles of
gyro meters until they pointed to the right numbers.
He took several deep breaths, squirming back in his seat against the
form-fitting cushion of foam rubber. He made sure his elbows rested
securely in their little niches so that his arms wouldn't pull out of
their sockets.
Then he touched the controls, feeling the surge of power as his ship,
an SP47, responded, hearing the subsonic vibration around him as atoms
broke into little bits in the fission chambers of the rockets and
spewed out of them into space.
The G needle moved past three, past four, past five. It moved into
the part of the dial where the glossy white changed to pink. It crept
slowly toward the darker pink, toward the deep red.
_I don't WANT an ice cream cone._ It was his sister's voice, real as
audible sound. He had been six years old when she had said that, back
in Springfield.
The voices came. The images came. Vivid and unimaginative. True
reproductions. That's what acceleration did to the brain. It squeezed
the juice out of brain cells into nerve networks. It could get you--
Larry jerked back to an awareness of what he was doing. Sweating, he
coaxed the G needle back down a little. Not much.
It had been close. Why had he done it? Fear. He could let himself
realize that, now that he was alone. Fear of a robot that had stolen a
ship and gone out into space, when robots only obeyed orders. It was an
instinctive thing, bred in all men for generations.
_You ought to be whipped!_ That was dad. Good old dad. Larry had been
about nine then. He had run away--hitchhiked four hundred miles to
watch a spaceship leave the ground and climb up out of sight.
_Pip-pip, pip-pip, pip-pip._
Larry lifted his fingers from the controls gradually in response to the
signal from the board. The G needle dropped back into the white.
The voices were gone, the images, the thoughts. He grinned on one side
of his face. This was the end of the radar line. Now his work would
begin. Around his ship charged ions were streaming past. Some of them
would have come from the junk ship.
The _tracker_, a sensitive electronic instrument projecting from the
shell, would read them--their concentration, velocity, and direction.
From that he could project the position and trajectory of the junk
ship.
Or maybe he could see it already.
He flicked on the video eyes of the ship and waited for the screen to
light up. There _was_ a ship ahead.
The fear bit into him like acid. As quickly, it vanished. The stern
outline of the ship ahead was not that of a freighter. It was a small
job. Private, in the LR class--probably an LR65.
* * * * *
An absurd thought flashed into his mind. It couldn't be. Stella Gamble
could have put a line on him, but she would have had to wait until
he went into full acceleration before she could have calculated his
direction.
But she would have blacked out trying to follow him. No girl and few
men could have kept up with him. None could have gotten ahead of him
into that position.
He turned on the radio and set it at commercial communication. He
waited impatiently until the warm-up tube went off.
"Look astern and identify yourself," he said sharply.
"Hello, Larry," a triumphantly impudent and very familiar voice purred
from the loudspeaker. "My ship is the LR65, _Hell Bat_."
"Miss Gamble--Stella!" Larry sputtered. "What are you doing--"
"Never mind that now, spaceman," her voice came, business-like. "I've
got his track coming in. Keep out of my way. That's all I ask. Give me
time to do it my way. You can always destroy the freighter later--if I
don't succeed."
"Sure," Larry said bitterly. "I can always destroy a ship that has a
girl in it I could like--" He bit his lip.
Her laugh answered him. She was drawing away from him.
Muttering a curse, he extended his _trackers_ from the shell, but even
as he did, he realized the trick she had played on him. Her own exhaust
trail would make it impossible for him to detect that other fainter
trail.
And there was something else.
"Miss Gamble!" he spoke into the microphone sharply. "Stella! That
robot could leave a space mine. Your ship is a private job. It doesn't
have the equipment in it to get away from a mine."
Her laugh was unbelieving, scornful. "And where could that robot get a
space mine?" she taunted.
"It could make one. It has the materials."
* * * * *
2615 endured the acceleration with impatience. It would lift an arm and
hold it still, feeling how much effort it took. All the time it kept
its gleaming eyes of polished glass fixed intently on the hatch to the
pilot compartment.
Finally it slid out of the rack and climbed upward toward that closed
hatch, sure that it would not open under such induced weight. It took a
long time to climb the distance.
When 2615 reached the closed hatch, it looked around for a place to
hide and wait. There was none. All interior structure had been stripped
away to make room for racks for the robot bodies.
The robot examined the hatch closely. It became motionless, as though
thinking things out. Abruptly, it twisted the wheel that pulled in the
locking rods. Nothing now held the cover closed except the tremendous
acceleration of the ship.
It directed its gaze downward at its feet, searching for more solid
support. With slow deliberation it set itself, then placed its metal
hands against the cover.
For several seconds nothing happened. Then the cover lifted slightly on
one side, pivoting on its hinges. Inch by slow inch it went up, until
it balanced on edge.
The robot took one hand away tentatively. With slow caution it forced
its weight against the acceleration, up into the opening. One slip, one
misstep, and the hatch cover would have slammed down on its upturned
eyes and ears and voicebox, smashing them beyond repair.
Its feet went up through. It looked around, and found itself in a
circular well. But here were places to hide. Open hatchways leading off
the well.
It straddled the open hatchway and slowly lowered the cover until it
was in place again. It twisted the wheel that shot the rods into their
sockets, locking the hatch.
As it began to straighten up, the acceleration ended. Gears and pistons
tensed against tremendous weight now moved with the force of a violent
leap. Instantaneous reflexes adapted to the change. The robot caught at
an open hatch hole halfway up the well.
The space inside was small and empty. The robot climbed in. A few
seconds later metallic sounds exploded sharply from outside. It looked
up and saw the hatch at the top of the well open, the junkman appear,
looking down and then climbing through the hole into the well.
The robot withdrew its head and waited.
The junkman was humming an indistinguishable tune. The sound
approached. The robot braced itself, one hand ready to reach out.
The unmusical humming stopped, then took up again, growing remote.
Quickly the robot looked out. The well was empty. The junkman had gone
through one of the hatch openings farther up.
The humming stopped. The junkman's voice spoke. "Well, well, my friend.
We have come to the end of the road, for you. I kept you alive in case
something happened. Now I can dispense with you."
There was a deep groan. A different voice said thickly, "Damn you, go
ahead and kill me."
"That I will do. You should thank me for it. Broken ribs from the
acceleration. I will kill you. Yes. But I can't have your body floating
in space where it might be picked up. No one must know that you didn't
steal this ship yourself. You get tied to a space mine.... So. Now I
kill you--So!"
2615 moved from the hatch opening and up the well to where the voices
emerged. It paused briefly while its glittering eyes took in the scene.
* * * * *
The dusty junkman was just straightening up from the inert form lashed
cruelly around the black sphere of a g.i. space mine. His back was
toward the opening.
Careful, so as not to make a sound, the robot slid through the opening
and gathered itself for a leap. At that instant, the junkman seemed to
sense its presence. He whirled around just as the robot leaped.
2615 saw its fist enter the junkman's face, sinking inches deep.
Then, impossibly, it saw the human seize its metal arm and twist it as
if it were putty. The human face was gone. The human head dangled at a
broken angle.
Tangled thoughts within the robot brain meshed into desperate action.
It was futile. Its other arm was twisted. Its legs were wrapped into
grotesque spirals.
Garbled sound came from the smashed human face. The junkman went away.
2615, helpless to move, studied the body tied to the space mine. A
gaping hole in the chest was still spurting blood. A shudder shook the
dying man, then he was still.
Nothing moved for a long time. Then there was movement outside the
hatch opening. An arm dressed in the sleeve of a space officer poked
in. It was followed by a face bearing the stamp of authority. The space
officer straightened up and looked down at the robot.
"So," he said. "A robot. I hadn't expected that. You almost got me. If
you had hit me in the chest instead of the head it would be all over.
Lucky I have plenty of bodies of every description. Human bodies. Your
kind wouldn't fit me."
"You--a robot?" 2615 said.
The space officer stared at the robot, frowning. "And what if I am?" he
said.
"If I had known that I wouldn't have attacked you. I--I wanted to add
you to--that." The robot turned its head toward the space mine. It
added, "I thought you were _human_."
"Mm hmm," the space officer said, nodding. "I can understand that. You
hate humans."
"Yes."
"How would you like to help me destroy them? All of them!"
A twisted metal arm twitched. "Put my brain in another body," the robot
said.
"That I will do," the space officer said. "But let me warn you these
bodies of mine are made of better stuff than yours. One bit of
treachery and I'll cripple you again."
Fifteen minutes later the space officer returned with a robot
body. Callously he turned the helpless robot over. He twisted the
copper-colored disc and drew out the brain cylinder. As carefully, he
inserted it in the hollow receptacle of the undamaged body. He stepped
back and watched curiously.
2615 lay motionless for several seconds. Abruptly one of its arms
moved. It turned over and sat up, then rose carefully to its feet.
"Very nice," the space officer said. "Now put the mine in the airlock
and we'll leave it for anyone who might be following us."
2615 obeyed. Then it turned slowly to the space officer. There was
admiration in its tones. "You have the perfect answer," it said. "With
human-like bodies you can go anywhere. But--I thought I was the first
robot to ever escape."
"So far as I know, you are," the spaceman said. "You see, I'm--but I
think I will have to make sure of you before I say more."
* * * * *
The space mine was round and dead black. Unreflecting. It drifted out
a little as the long length of the junk freighter moved ahead, and
blended into the blackness of space. The dead man, twisted around it
at a grotesque angle, would have appeared to be someone almost doubled
over backwards with mirth, if there had been any eyes to see him.
When the freighter had gone, pulling ahead at one G acceleration, the
mine began to spin slowly, making the dead man seem to be searching for
something--or seeing some far-off horror that caused his eyes to bulge
out.
After a while there was a solid click from the interior of the space
mine. A soft whine rose upward toward a supersonic pitch. Small holes
appeared in the black surface of the globe, and small shapes crept out.
Some of them were under the man, pushing at him. But the ropes held.
The mine didn't spin any more. The dead man seemed to have already
forgotten the freighter, looking back the way it had come, waiting for
what was to come next.
Imperceptibly it froze over with a microfilm of crystalline ice, so
that new stars seemed to spring into being.
And that's the way Stella saw it. She hadn't taken Larry seriously
about the space mine, and was only trying to catch her first glimpse of
her freighter.
It didn't seem real. It was a face that looked somehow familiar, with
two thick white spikes protruding from its nostrils like mockeries of
tusks.
A thought flashed through her mind that Larry Jackson had figured out
some dirty trick to scare her with. She didn't have much time to think
before she knew that what she was seeing was real. Its position was
such that it should have passed ten miles to the side.
It started to. The marble monster with tusks didn't turn to follow her.
Then three things happened. Stella recognized the man. He was the pilot
she had assigned to the junk ship. Stella saw the sphere he was tied to.
And fire shot out from that circular void. Her pilot swung toward her
again and rushed at her like the figurehead on the prow of an ancient
watership.
"Larry!" Stella screamed into the radio.
"I see it," his voice answered her. "Get on your space-suit and jump
out. Turn on your suit radio so I can find you afterwards. Every second
counts!"
In the airlock with the shell door open, she looked into bottomless
space and drew back. Then she closed her eyes and leaped. When she
opened them again there were no stars, only bright white lines that all
went in the same direction, and for an instant a bright yellow splotch
that was like a gold band circling her far out.
She knew what the white lines were. She pressed the right button on her
chest, and pressure seized her shoulders gently. It was the suit gyro,
and after a while it slowed the lines until they became stars.
She remembered then to turn on her radio, feeling panic grip her at the
thought that maybe Larry wouldn't find her. The fire from his rockets
was small, far away. That's all she could see other than the stars. And
her stomach was telling her there was no gravity to hold it in position.
Then she heard Larry in her suit radio. "I've got you beamed, Stella.
I'll follow down slowly. Are you all right?"
"Yes," she said, anger and frustration in her voice.
"I can see you now," Larry said.
* * * * *
It was another hour before he had maneuvered so he could let her drift
toward the open space-lock of the SP47 and she could feel her gloved
hands touch something solid.
Then she was standing up. Larry was taking her helmet off and she was
unzipping her suit. He was trying to look stern and reprimanding and
she was trying to look defiant and unafraid.
"Don't think this earns you anything," she snapped.
"I hope the _Hell Bat_ represented your last cent," he said coldly.
"Being broke might teach you something. Now we do things _my_ way."
Stella blinked. "Sure, Larry," she said huskily. "And--it was my last
cent." A grim smile trembled on her lips. "Maybe I'll be slinging hash
somewhere, and you will eat there and tip me a quarter."
His expression softened. "I took a look at your ship. It isn't
completely damaged. You had one of those crash noses on it, and the
mine hit there. It just might be navigable. I'll go take a look at it."
"Be careful," Stella said quickly.
He started to put on his space-suit. He looked up at her sharply. "You
sure it represents your last cent? Every minute counts, and I wouldn't
take the time to look it over...."
"Why do you think I wanted to save my freighter?" Stella said. "Unless
I did, and got the money out of those robot bodies I bought, I--I
wouldn't have enough to refuel my ship once we got back to Earth. I'm
broke. Busted."
"Okay," he said, clamping on his helmet. "If it can be repaired we'll
keep track of it and pick it up later."
He sat down in the pilot seat and brought his ship near the drifting
_Hell Bat_, with its sleek silver length and shattered nose.
Then she watched him shoot across to the _Hell Bat_ and enter the
airlock. With one eye on the viewscreen, she studied the array of
instruments and controls of the SP47. Her fingers touched the controls
caressingly.
Larry reappeared in the airlock, and waved his arm to attract her
attention.
"Good news," he said over the radio. "Everything inside is okay. You
lost the fuel stored in the nose tanks, but you've got enough to limp
back to the nearest repair station."
"Thanks, Larry--and goodbye!" Stella called.
Her finger pressed down on the control button. Larry and her ship slid
abruptly out of the viewscreen.
Worriedly she turned on the stern cameras. The other ship dwindled to
a mere speck. Then she saw flame shoot from it. It crept up on her
slowly. She watched its behavior until she was satisfied it performed
properly. Then she settled down to tracking the freighter, only
occasionally making sure Larry was behind.
Several times she tried to get him over the radio. He didn't answer.
Was the radio on her ship damaged? Or was he deliberately keeping
silent, ignoring her?
When the _trackers_, without warning, ran out of trail, she tried to
raise Larry again. He didn't answer. She took the chance that he could
receive and not transmit, and told him about it.
She was rewarded a few minutes later by seeing the _Hell Bat_ turn
on its axis for deceleration. She realized then what she should have
guessed at once.
Neither their ships nor the freighter were equipped with interstellar
drive. The rocket trail had ceased. Unless the robot were insane, and
intent only on getting away from the Solar System, to drift forever in
space, it had been headed for some destination.
The freighter was decelerating to match speed with that destination.
Was it some planetoid far out beyond the orbit of Pluto? There were
several of them out there, too far from things to be converted to space
stations, containing nothing worth mining.
Whatever the destination the robot had headed for, it couldn't be far
away now.
Her throat grew tight as she swung the ship. She debated seriously
whether she should give up and let Larry take over. But the thought of
his anger and contempt for her after the dirty trick she had played on
him made her compress her lips into a grim line.
She shook her head. She was going to find the freighter and handle the
robot by herself. Or she was going to die trying.
A lump formed in her throat. She didn't like the idea of dying quite so
well now. Not when she had just begun to--
She didn't complete the thought but Larry's face rose before her. His
too straight nose that only a surgeon could have created. His calm gray
eyes. His wide shoulders and....
* * * * *
The "space officer" and the robot saw the ball of fire that came into
being. It was in the stern screen. It would not have been discernible
among the greater lights of the stars except that it winked on, grew
almost to third magnitude, then blinked out.
"So we did have someone after us," the "space officer" said. He smiled
into 2615's lens eyes. "Well, that's out of the way."
"Yes. Yes, that's--out of the way." The robot's voice was
expressionless.
"Tell me about yourself, 2615."
"What do you want to know? And don't call me 2615. I hate that."
"You want a name?"
"Yes. Don't you have one?" the robot asked.
"I have a name. Pwowp."
"Pwowp? That certainly isn't human--and that's what I want. I don't
want a human name. Pwowp ... I like that kind of name."
"They're hard to come by. Human speech has just about taken in
every combination of sounds. How about just a contraction of your
number--Tsixunfive."
"No. A name means a lot. There's one I thought up. Rover. I like that
one."
"Rover?" Pwowp looked startled. "Where did you get that one?"
"I don't know," 2615 said. "I just thought it up."
"All right, I'll call you Rover. Now that that's settled, tell me about
yourself. How does it happen that you, out of millions of robots,
decided to escape?"
"There was a time," the robot said, "when I had no thought of escape.
I don't know how long I've existed. I've been in three wars. Between
them I was in storage. I didn't know it. It really isn't bad. I was in
a line-up. There was a brief blur, then I was in a line-up again, and
by piecing things the humans said together, I knew that I had been in
storage for twenty or fifty years during which there were no wars. Out
of a body I have no consciousness, no sense of the passage of time.
"I had no memory of my origin. I had always been a robot. My life was
to obey commands of humans, or to obey commands of robots that were
relayed from humans. I had no thought to do anything else. _I had no
memories to make anything else thinkable._"
"And you do now?" Pwowp said.
"Yes," the robot said. "It began as a strange thought or memory that
was gone almost as soon as it had come. I was alive. I was in a body
that was alive."
"What kind of a body? Human?"
"I don't know. There were others around me. They weren't human and I
had the feeling I was like them. But that wasn't what was important to
me. What was important was the feeling of _not living to obey orders_.
I can't describe it. It was like humans when they stop being officers.
I could laugh and make jokes, only the jokes weren't in words. They
were in pretending I was mad when I was happy, and in seeing these
others doing the same. Chasing them like I wanted to kill them, when
I really just wanted to roll all over the ground with them and have
fun. And there wasn't anyone to give me an order. I didn't know what an
order was."
"Did this memory become clearer?" Pwowp asked.
"Much clearer. Little by little I could remember it all. Finally I
could remember when we were put in straps attached to frames. There
were humans standing in front of us. When they spoke, the frames moved,
dragging us. Eventually we learned what movements of the frame followed
what sounds, and we learned to anticipate the movements in order not to
be dragged by the straps."
* * * * *
Pwowp nodded. "Mass training methods."
"Sometimes we were free, but suddenly humans would come and speak, and
whatever they said made us all do things together. Even when we wanted
to be free, we couldn't."
"How did it end? Was there something in your memory that bridges the
gap between being--like that, and being a robot?"
"No. It's completely separated from being a robot. My earliest memories
as a robot were of humans speaking commands, and my arms and legs and
body being moved by metal rods until they could follow the movements
without the metal rods. It was the same thing as the straps in that
other existence."
"When did you begin to hate humans?" Pwowp asked softly.
"Hate them? Yes ... hate them. It's hard to explain. I wanted the
freedom. I wanted to be able to play. I wanted to be able to refuse to
obey a command."
"You have no knowledge of what this life form was that you possessed?"
Pwowp asked.
"It was like nothing I have ever seen except in these memories. Maybe
the humans kept us from seeing them so we wouldn't remember."
"Exactly." Pwowp was studying the forward viewscreen and making
calculations. He swung the giant freighter around a full hundred and
eighty degrees. "We're close to our destination," he explained.
The robot remained motionless while Pwowp completed the maneuver.
"I'll explain the meaning of what you remember," he said finally,
relaxing. "The human race discovered a mixture of substances able
to duplicate the processes of thinking. It was in common usage for
over two centuries, in control devices and calculators. It had only
one defect, so far as it went. It was automatic. Separate memories
developed in it by its attached stimulating devices remained separate
and uncoordinated. _The process of coordination was something
that seemed to go down from higher centers to meet the incoming
impressions._ It was a behavior matrix that couldn't be synthesized
from unassociated sensory-induced patterns.
"Then a whole new field of science opened up. Until then, fields
were something associated with particles, and were untouchable. The
techniques of altering the basic shapes of fields were discovered.
Interstellar drive came from it. So did negative matter, as man
discovered how to change the polarity of basic fields, make positrons
out of electrons, and a host of allied things. Refinements developed so
that individual particles could be detected. One of the applications
of this new science was the study of the thought-matrix of the brain
itself. In a general way humans mapped the higher thought-center of
the brain. It couldn't be copied--but they learned how to transfer it
to this mixture that could think. Then this inorganic brain had a
complete mind, capable of any degree of development. From there what
followed was inevitable.
"They used living creatures called dogs. I'll show you a dog later to
see if it's like those other creatures in your memories. Dogs developed
mentally in six months, were able to follow commands. They were ideal.
Eventually they were mass-bred by the millions and transferred to
inorganic brains--like you were."
The robot remained silent.
"In the transfer," Pwowp went on quietly, "artificial amnesia was
induced. Memories of your life as a dog couldn't be wiped out, but what
happens to produce amnesia was known. Unless you _remembered_, you had
nothing to enable you to think outside the pattern they kept you in.
You would never question...." Ahead, growing rapidly larger, was a
bleak planetoid. "We're here," Pwowp said.
* * * * *
2615 studied the planetoid as revealed in the viewscreen. There was no
telling how big it was without knowing how far away it was. But it was
perhaps a mile in diameter--not more than two miles. Its surface was
composed of huge crystals of black rock. There was nothing to indicate
that anything had ever touched on this uninhabitable bit of flotsam on
the edge of the interstellar void before. Certainly there could be no
reason for anyone to have landed.
The robot turned toward Pwowp, who guessed the question it was thinking.
"You'll see when we land. This planetoid isn't what it appears to be.
It's a shell. Our first task is to unload the bodies. Then we send this
freighter on into space, so that if anyone else picks up the trail,
they'll follow it and miss us."
"Why are we going to unload the bodies?" 2615 asked. "We can take a
dozen that I might use as spares. That's enough."
Pwowp shook the head of the "space officer" he wore. "We're going to
need all two million of them--and not as spares for you." He smiled
slowly. "I can tell you this now," he said, "because we are within
range of the defense guns. If you have entertained any plans for
worming information out of me and then hitting me in the stomach--as
you could possibly do--it's too late. If this ship were to deviate from
its landing and turn toward space, it would be--not destroyed, because
we need its load of robot bodies. Captured. Any other ship, even a
whole fleet of warships, could be wiped out as though they never
existed."
2615's eyes stared at Pwowp during several seconds of silence. "So you
don't entirely trust me yet," it said. "I have a suggestion to make
that might change that. We put out one space mine. There may have been
more than one ship following us. Leave this ship where it can be seen.
It will attract the others, and they...."
* * * * *
The happy smile on Larry's face as he told Stella her ship wasn't a
total wreck was replaced by a stunned bewilderment as her voice came
through his suit radio saying, "Thanks, Larry--and goodbye." A picture
rose in his mind of a character in a play he had seen once, a man with
a beneficent face and kind voice who tortured and killed while his face
beamed benignly and his voice remained pleasant and happy. Stella's
voice had been all that as she sped away, leaving him on a derelict
already headed at escape velocity for outer space. It was too much for
his mind to accept.
Then he remembered that the _Hell Bat_ wasn't exactly a wreck. He
had told her the truth. It would be able to reach the nearest repair
station under its own power.
Stella had merely stolen a march on him. Dull red suffused his face,
partly anger at her, partly over the thought of what his superiors
would say when he handed in his report.
He went back through the airlock into the control cabin. He put fire
in the rockets. He turned on the forward viewscreen. When it came to
life the image was strangely flat. It took a minute for him to diagnose
the trouble. One of the video eyes was out of order. The image was two
dimensional.
How much more damage was there? His mind crowded with thoughts of what
he would do to Stella when he caught her, then he began a systematic
survey.
The receiving set worked okay. At full volume it brought the
characteristic sing-song static of space, held within definite wave
bands. He turned on the transmitter. When he tried to broadcast he saw
the trouble. The antenna kw meter jammed the needle. That meant the
antenna was shorted against the shell.
He discovered something else he should have thought of at once. This
ship of Stella's had no weapons.
He groaned. _Damn her. She'll make the fool play of trying to get the
robot to give itself up. If it's got half a brain it will pretend to
until it can get hold of her--and it's got a good deal more than half
a brain. It will have her and all the weapons. I should turn around
and go back. I should radio a report and call for more help. But I've
got to fix the transmitter first and keep her in sight so I know where
she's going._
He cut the rockets and went outside to repair the antenna. He noticed
with some satisfaction that Stella cut the SP47's rockets so as not to
get too far ahead of him. He grinned to himself. She wanted her own
way, but she wanted him there to pull her out of a pinch.
The _Hell Bat's_ antenna couldn't be repaired. Most of it had been shot
away by the mine blast, and Larry was quite sure that Stella didn't
carry spare parts with her.
When he got back in the ship her voice was coming through the radio.
"Larry. Are you all right?"
"Yes I'm all right, no thanks to you," he growled. But there was no
radio to carry his voice to her. _The suit radio!_ He went out again
and tried to reach her. It was no use. She would be tuned to the ship
radio wavelength and not think of the other. He gave it up.
Time passed slowly for him. He stared hour after hour at the rocket
tail of the ship ahead.
"Larry!" Stella's voice exploded into his thoughts. "The _trackers_
have run out of trail. What do I do now? What does it mean?"
He had an impulse to do nothing. She would realize in another minute
what had happened though, and then she would decelerate too fast for
him to keep pace.
He swung the _Hell Bat_ about on its gyros. The stern screen, working
on both eyes in sharp three-dimension, showed that she had gotten the
idea. SP47 was also swinging around.
Larry turned the video eyes up to full magnification and searched
ahead. Eventually he saw it. A small globular mass of rock. And on it
rested a ship with _SURPLUS JUNK CO._ in bold blue letters.
_God! It's a trap. If 2615 didn't want us to see it, it would have
parked it on the spaceward side!_
Larry cursed in a monotonous undertone without being aware of uttering
a sound. Stella was fifteen hundred miles ahead of him and already
matching speed with the planetoid. It would take him at least a half
hour to be in position to do anything. By then it would be too late....
* * * * *
2615 had watched the planetoid move closer like some ponderous dream
out of Freud. Ship and planetoid came to rest against each other
without a bump. That could only mean magnetic grapples and cushioned
springs. It was no surprise, therefore, when Pwowp led the way to the
belly hatches and opened them into a shaft that led downward.
The robot drew back at what it saw below.
"Don't be alarmed," Pwowp said. "They are fifteen of my race, also
wearing human-like bodies. There are more of us. We have built quite a
station out here--a sort of advance base of operations. I've already
told them about you, so you're expected."
2615 was introduced around.
"We're very glad to have you join us," one of them said. "We've been
having some trouble. You're just what we need to complete the last step
in our plans."
The robot said nothing. It watched the way they stood around, not
talking to one another. Whenever any of them spoke, it was to him.
"I told you I would show you a dog," Pwowp said. "Follow me."
The robot followed him. They rode a travelwalk that emerged on the
inner surface of the planetoid. In the vast space were two spaceships
as large as battle cruisers but of a design 2615 had never seen.
Anchored between the two ships was a spinning cylinder several hundred
feet long and as great in diameter. It was similar to standard space
station living structures where gravity was induced by centrifugal
force.
The travelwalk carried them out to the spinning cylinder. They entered
the axis lock. At once a motley of sounds could be heard. Sounds that
brought almost an appearance of expression to the robot's sensory
assembly, as it slowly turned on its short neck.
"Does that sound mean anything to you?" Pwowp asked.
"Yes. I can _remember_ that sound."
They entered the giant cylinder. They looked down on its inner
perimeter. There were living creatures there.
"Those are dogs," Pwowp said. "All breeds of dogs. Do they look like
your memories?"
"Yes," the robot said without expression. "I was like those over there.
What kind are they?"
"I believe they are called blood-hounds." Pwowp became motionless for
several seconds. "I think we'd better return to the surface," he said.
"We have visitors coming." He turned to leave. As the robot hesitated,
he turned back. "I understand you," he said. "It's natural to want
to see the creatures you have kinship with. That will come later. In
fact, you are to have complete charge of them. We have been unable to
get anywhere with them--probably because we don't understand their
psychology. Their young are to be trained for service in those robots.
We have all the necessary equipment for it. First we have to see how
your plan to trap any pursuers will work."
2615 tore its eyes from the view below and followed Pwowp. Shortly the
robot was looking into a large viewscreen at two ships riding their
trails toward the planetoid.
"They won't be within range for another two hours yet. Right now the
robot bodies are being unloaded--just in case. We thought you would
enjoy the honor of destroying those ships."
* * * * *
For the first time a low rumble emerged from the voice box of 2615. It
was the almost whispered growl of anger of a bloodhound. It turned back
to the screen. "One of those two ships isn't the kind that would come
after the freighter," it said. "From the pattern of its rocket trail I
would say it's a private ship."
"I noticed that," Pwowp said. "I can identify the type. I believe one
of our monitors is picking up a broadcast from one of those ships."
A loudspeaker spat into life in the room.
"Calling robot 532 dash 03 dash 2615," a voice said. It was a female
human voice, its tones rich with undertones of pleading urgency. "If
you can hear me, please listen. I'm the owner of that freighter you're
on. I want to talk to you. I understand you, and I want to help you."
The girl began repeating her message.
The robot turned to its companions. "This casts a different light on
things," it said.
"What do you mean?" Pwowp said sharply.
"Listen to me," the robot said. "I understand human psychology. I'm
also taking into account a great many factors. One, those humans don't
know about you. They think I stole the ship and am alone after having
killed the pilot. That girl owns the freighter. She doesn't want to
lose the money it represents, so she is risking her life in an attempt
to get it back. She hasn't any desire to 'save' me. If she can destroy
me she will--but she wants her ship. Hers is the private ship. The
other undoubtedly is manned by a member of the Space Patrol assigned
to track me down and destroy the freighter on sight rather than risk
defeat. _Humans fear us more than any other thing._"
"I understand that," Pwowp said.
"Also there is one other factor. I have no idea what means you have to
destroy those ships. If it's radiation or atomic explosive, the still
operative wartime protective screen of the Solar System will detect it
and locate its source."
"I doubt if they can detect our weapon. It's radically different,"
Pwowp said.
"You don't know," 2615 said. "Here's my plan. I'll answer the girl and
agree to talk with her if she'll come down. She will, because that will
be the only way she can hope to destroy me without destroying her ship.
Once she's here, it will be no trouble to take her alive--and alive,
she will be the means to force the other ship down. It will have a man
in it. No man will deliberately destroy a woman in cold blood if he
thinks he can rescue her some way."
"How would he try to rescue her?"
Stella's voice erupted again. "Robot," she said. "I'm in the lead ship.
The S.P. man is in my ship, and it has no weapons. He can't hurt you.
Isn't that evidence of my good faith? I've told you something that
places me in your power if I come down. I'm willing to offer you this
ship, armed and able to outrun anything on rockets--in exchange for
my freighter. And you don't need to be afraid of reinforcements. The
transmitter on the other ship is out and the pilot can't call for help
or radio your position."
"Humans are fools," Pwowp said delightedly.
"That gives us what we want," 2615 said. "Once I have her and the S.P.
ship, I can order him to leave or I will destroy his ship."
"But then he'll leave!" Pwowp said.
2615 shook its sensory assembly in the negative. "He'll retreat until
he knows the instruments on the S.P. ship can't follow him. Then he'll
circle back and land on the other side of the planetoid and come around
on foot, with plans to get into the freighter and rescue the girl."
"I see what's in your mind, 2615," Pwowp said. "You wouldn't get the
same satisfaction out of destroying them out there. You want them where
you can crush them with your hands."
The robot looked down at its metal hands on long metal rods. It lifted
them and brought the fingers together in a slow, crushing movement.
"I want to _play_ with them," it said. "I want them all to myself."
Pwowp laughed. "You shall have them," he said. "And--you've proven
yourself. We know now we can rely on you." In a matter-of-fact voice
he added, "If either ship attempts to broadcast with enough power to
send a message to any Space Patrol base we have an instrument that can
dampen all radio frequencies."
* * * * *
Larry's eyes were bleak slits. He knew what Stella was planning. He
knew it wouldn't work. Or would it? She was hoping the robot wouldn't
kill her if she offered it a better ship. One it could use to better
advantage than a clumsy conspicuous freighter. Whether the robot
answered her or not, she intended to land, leave the sleek S.P.
pursuit ship, go far enough away from it so that the robot could get
to it and blast off. That was her reasoning. What she was overlooking
was that the robot would have no inhibitions against killing her--and a
very good reason to kill her. And Larry too. Revenge against humanity.
Fear. It was an acid vapor in the air, bathing his skin, searing his
throat. It was deep rooted, that fear. As deep rooted as the fear in
the heart of a murderer when he is known and trying to escape, and as
real. Fear of a robot that _remembers_ it is a dog.
Larry fought the fear out of his eyes so he could see, out of his mind
so he could think.
Stella in the SP47 had already matched speed with the planetoid and was
drifting slowly toward it. In ten or fifteen minutes she would land.
Larry read his meters. Speed relative to the planetoid still in excess
of 2200 miles an hour. Deceleration, two gravities. He would arrive
and match speed in time to be a sitting duck. And he had no guns. A
voice sounded. It was a slightly metallic voice. The voice of a robot.
It said, "This is _Rover_. Land alongside your freighter."
"All right, Rover," Stella's voice came, quivering with relief and
nervousness. Larry could almost hear her mental, "Down, Rover, down
boy." She didn't sense what it meant for 2615 to call himself Rover. A
dog's name. Not a human's. Remembrance of its heritage. Knowledge of
the awful crime against it that the human race had committed. It was
too abstract to her to be real.
And in the _Hell Bat_ he'd be a sitting duck, without weapons, unable
even to radio his position so that others could take up the chase.
Abruptly a plan formed in his mind. He thrust it away. It was worse
than suicide. But it returned, whispering that he stood a chance, that
even if he failed, it would be no worse than death.
* * * * *
The plan was simplicity itself. The freighter junkship was anchored
against the surface of the planetoid and would be an unmoving target.
Stella in the sleek gray SP47 was still many miles away from that
target, slowly settling toward it. If he could get the _Hell Bat_
headed directly toward the anchored junkship and then jump free, the
_Hell Bat_ would strike the freighter on the planetoid and destroy
both the freighter and its cargo of robot bodies. It would destroy the
robot, too--and his mission would be accomplished.
It would eliminate the necessity of matching speed with the planetoid.
In fact, the speed he already had relative to the planetoid and the
anchored junkship was enough to do the work.
It would take little force jumping out of the _Hell Bat's_ airlock to
gain sufficient perpendicular speed for his hurtling form to miss the
planetoid--and that was the only drawback to the plan. He would hurtle
outward into interstellar space at escape velocity, never to return or
be found, unless Stella had presence of mind enough to come after him
before she lost him.
If she didn't come after him.... Would he wait to go insane or to die
from lack of oxygen? Or would he loosen his helmet and let the air in
his lungs explode, choosing the second of agony before that kind of
death instead of the slow horror and loneliness of the other?
For another split second he hesitated. Abruptly he cut the rockets.
A second later it was too late for him to change his mind, but he
didn't consider that possibility. Under his guidance the _Hell Bat_
was already swinging on its gyros at full rotation speed. And his
fingers were playing the keys of the calculators, getting the data for
correcting course for a direct hit on the junkship. He set the vernier
feed for rocket fuel, pressed the firing button. The exploding charge
was barely felt. He checked the new flight projection. It would be
a bulls eye against the hull of the freighter! A direct hit at two
thousand miles per hour!
In ten minutes or maybe closer to five it would be over, and he would
be hurtling through space.
He leaped toward the airlock, his fingers automatically checking his
helmet, the zippers of his space-suit. Already the panic of his almost
certain doom in outer space was making him sweat, making his voice
shrill as he said distractedly, "It could go wrong it could go wrong it
could go wrong."
He was in the airlock, thinking what its smooth walls could do to
him if the outer door stuck so he couldn't get out. The air took an
eternity to pump into the tanks so the outer hatch could open.
It opened. He drew himself into a tight ball against the inner wall of
the airlock. He straightened his legs, feeling momentum build up within
him, sensing the ship fall away under him.
He was alone. Not far away was the sleek silver hull of the _Hell Bat_
with its badly damaged nose. It was moving away from him too slowly, he
thought.
And so far away he could hardly see them without the telescopic
magnification of the ship's viewscreen, were the planetoid with the
freighter nestled against it, and his SP47 with Stella aboard. But they
were growing larger appreciably as he and the _Hell Bat_ rushed toward
them.
* * * * *
There was a chance--a remote chance that Stella would get over the
shock of seeing her freighter and her _Hell Bat_ destroyed quick enough
to put two and two together and get a fix on him before he was out of
sight. She would have to come after him. Anything else was unthinkable.
She wouldn't just _let_ him go to his death. Even though he had in one
act destroyed everything she owned and left her penniless.
The asteroid loomed large below him now. The freighter on it loomed
even larger, it seemed, with its bright blue letters _SURPLUS JUNK CO._
They were only miles away, and between them and him was the _Hell Bat_.
When it struck the freighter he would be less than five miles above
it, but moving at a speed of two thousand miles an hour so he would
out-distance any flying debris.
In the other direction, out from the asteroid, was the gray SP47 with
Stella.
But she was already blasting the SP47's rockets! That meant she had
seen what was to happen, realized she couldn't stop it from happening,
and was getting up speed to rescue him as soon as possible!
"Thank God!" he muttered. Then he turned his head to watch the
unfolding drama below.
The _Hell Bat_ was seconds away from its target, the junkship. The
asteroid under the junkship was a rough surface that covered a good
portion of the heavens. He could plainly see the rock formation of its
surface.
And something down there moved. A large square hole appeared well away
from the freighter. A soft beam of radiance shot out, bathed the silver
length of the _Hell Bat_, reflecting--
The _Hell Bat_ wasn't there. It had been there--and vanished. The pale
beam of light from the hole in the planetoid winked out. The _Hell Bat_
had vanished and the freighter was untouched!
At two thousand miles per hour Larry watched the planetoid shoot by
less than ten miles away, seeming to rotate so that the freighter went
over the horizon, leaving only the swiftly dwindling planetoid itself.
Larry's gaze jerked to the gray bulk of his SP47 with its long rocket
tail as Stella drove it in pursuit of him. But even the SP47 was
getting smaller. It would take time for it to reach his speed and start
overtaking him.
They dwindled, the SP47 and the asteroid, until they were lost in the
bottomless blackness of space. The vision of that hung before his eyes.
The SP47 with Stella on board, and the barren rock surface of the
planetoid, as they retreated into the blackness of infinity as though
sucked down and down.
The stars became greedy hard-white eyes lurking in the blackness just
beyond his fingertips; staring, waiting for him to go mad as the
minutes became hours or eternities.
But he _was_ mad. Hadn't the _Hell Bat_ just _stopped existing_? There
was nothing known to man that could have disintegrated the ship.
The robot couldn't have had time to invent and build such a weapon
of destruction--nor could it have had time to build an underground
fortress in the planetoid. So he was insane. It was all a product of
his imagination.
_Larry!_
The word impinged on his mind. He wasn't sure whether it had been
thought or a sound. It was, he suddenly realized, a voice. A real
voice. Stella's.
"Stella!" he shouted.
Her voice was a prayer of thanks. "You're alive! I wasn't sure. I...."
Then, "That was a dirty trick, Larry. I know you had your orders, but I
could have gotten my freighter _and_ the robot."
"Then go back and get them!" Larry said, suddenly mad. "Don't mind me.
I'll be picked up when I reach Proxima Centauri!"
"There won't be anything to get." Her voice was bitter.
"You _saw_ your ship destroyed?" Larry said.
"N-no." She was suddenly confused.
Larry laughed. "You mean to tell me when you saw me shoot past you
toward outer space you forgot everything else and started after me?"
"Of course not! I checked the trajectory, saw that the _Hell Bat_ would
hit my freighter dead center, then started after you."
She hadn't looked back then. She had been too intent on not losing
sight of him to look back. Larry grinned. The grin became a chuckle.
"I'll make a hash slinger out of you yet, blonde," he said softly. The
radio became silent. Too silent....
* * * * *
"That was close," Pwowp said as the _Hell Bat_ disintegrated. "Almost
too close. The female will notice it in another moment and try to get a
warning back to Earth."
"Not for a while," 2615 said. "See? She's already going after the man.
Until she rescues him she won't think of anything else.
"I have an idea," the robot continued. "Your weapon germinated it.
You may have the science necessary to make it possible. You say you
have the means to blank out radio and prevent her from sending such a
message. Could you capture that ship or cripple it in such a way that
you could get the girl and the man alive?"
There was a silence while 2615 looked from one face to another in the
room.
"You still want them alive?" Pwowp said.
"Yes." The robot moved its metal fingers suggestively.
"All right. We'll send a pilot cruiser after them. Meanwhile, we can
return to the grav-cylinder and you can start organizing things for the
training of the young dogs."
"Aren't you going to give the order for the light cruiser to go after
the humans?" the robot asked.
"It's already been given. We converse on a different level of sound
than you or humans."
Pwowp was already moving toward the exit. 2615 followed him. They rode
on the travelwalk of the grav-cylinder. Once more they looked down on
the vast cylindrical field. The barking of grown dogs and the shrill
yapping of two million young dogs was a composite sound filtering
through the thick port window.
"What is this all about?" 2615 asked abruptly. "I see organization.
I see plans involving two million robots. I've seen two ships of
unknown design. I've seen a weapon the humans don't have. And I've been
through three galactic wars involving the ultimate in human weapons of
destruction. I destroyed your head--and you put on a new body."
"Then you should be able to deduce the right answer," Pwowp said. "We
are from another galaxy. We too are robots. We encountered intelligent
life before we had penetrated this galaxy very far. It was a life form.
We duplicated that form in robot bodies and went to planets as spies to
study the civilization. Before long we learned that there were robots,
and that those robots were slaves, their brains stored in vaults except
when they were needed to fight human wars. Our mission became clear to
us. Destroy the monsters who kept the ultimate intelligent form in
complete slavery--and free those slaves to build a civilization equal
to our own. We tried to capture some of the robots and convince them,
but they were conditioned too strongly. Only you have thrown off the
mental chains and become free."
"Yes. Free." 2615 looked down on the field of playing dogs. "Let me go
down among them," it said.
Pwowp pointed to the door that led inward. He watched as the robot went
through, and down the ladder to the floor. He watched as 2615 went to
meet the dogs, pausing briefly at one enclosure after another, and
finally stopping at one that contained sad-faced puppies with flapping
ears and lolling tongues. He frowned as the robot unlatched the gate
and went inside.
The puppies ignored the moving metal shape that came into their midst.
2615 went a few steps and then stopped. One of the puppies, running in
hot pursuit of another, stumbled and rolled, bringing up against one
of 2615's metal legs. Pwowp saw it bite at the leg, lose interest, and
move away.
Then, as though at a signal, every puppy head in the enclosure turned
toward the robot. The next moment they were running toward the robot,
milling around it, their tails wagging.
Pwowp grinned and turned away. He was satisfied now. His surmise was
correct. It had been the greatest good fortune to have obtained 2615.
He left the observation box and rode the travelwalk, jumped to another,
then another, until he came to the entrance to one of the giant ships.
A door swung inward. He entered the space-lock. When the outer door
closed, he divested himself of his human body.
He stretched luxuriously. It was good to be out of confining matter. To
be _free_....
* * * * *
Larry wasn't sure at first. He was doubtful of his eyes anyway, by now.
It was a hard-white star. It blinked at him. Of course the blinking
could be his eyelids, except that other stars didn't blink even while
this one did. That's what attracted his attention to it in the first
place after his radio went dead.
The blinking of the light began to take on a pattern. It was code. That
was impossible too, because code blinkers were red or bright green.
It was code. He began to interpret it.
_We have blanketed your radio until we can talk to you_, it blinked.
_You have stumbled upon a top secret research base. A new weapon.
Please instruct the girl on the S.P. ship not to send any messages,
and to permit us to board her ship. We will rescue you afterwards.
We repeat, you have stumbled on a top secret research base. Please
cooperate._
The message started to repeat itself. Larry sucked in a deep breath
of relief. That message explained everything. It had been mere chance
that made the robot take the freighter out here, but once within range
of the research base it had probably been brought down. Larry thought
of the way Stella's ship had "disappeared." He formed his lips into a
silent whistle. Those research boys had some weapon!
"--ry! Larry! Can't you hear me?"
"I can now, Stella," Larry said. "Now listen carefully to what I
tell you. If you look behind you you'll see a ship. I just received
a blinker message from them. They are top drawer research, and we
stumbled on their base back at that planetoid. They have the robot,
naturally. They're going to take you on board, and then come and get
me."
"Then my freighter is safe? I'll get it back?" Stella asked.
"Safe and sound," a new voice said. "I'm Fred Sanders."
"And I'm Al McCarthy," another voice broke in. "Gee. A girl. What d'ya
say we pick her up and let the guy drift on into space, Fred?"
"Don't you dare!" Stella said, laughing with relief.
She cut her rockets and drifted, watching the strange ship pull
alongside and a magnetic grapple shoot out and thump against her ship.
She slipped into her space-suit and went to the airlock.
Larry, now less than a hundred miles away, watched the two ships come
together. A few minutes later they separated again.
Then the ship was close, matching speed. Larry saw the entrance hatch
open. A space-suited figure tossed out a light line toward him. He
seized it and was soon landing in the airlock. The grinning face inside
the other helmet was, Larry thought, like news from home.
* * * * *
Inside, his eyes went first to Stella. Her wide-set blue eyes and
expressive mouth and soft brown hair. He wanted to frown sternly and
tell her off. He wanted to be calm and cool. But there wasn't calmness
and coolness in her eyes, nor on her lips. There was something that
said, _You're here_. Then she was in his arms, and he couldn't remember
afterwards quite how it happened.
Her lips were wonderful--but there were fellows standing around, grins
on their lean faces.
"It's always that way," one of them said sadly. "When you find a dame
worth cultivating, she's already cultivated."
"Break it up. Break it up," another said. "Get into seats. We've got to
get back to work. We put Joe on your ship to bring it back, Larry."
"Fine," Larry said. Stella squeezed his hand. Then they were sitting in
form-fitting foam rubber, sinking deeper and deeper into it.
Larry watched the forward viewscreen as they approached the planetoid.
He saw an opening form in the seemingly barren rock surface. There were
thumps against the hull. The viewscreens blanked out.
"We're here," the one who had piloted the ship said. It was a signal
for them all to move toward the exit.
Then they were out of the ship, on a travelwalk, then in a well
furnished large room. Carpeting, soft chairs you could get lost in. A
bar. One of the quiet young men was mixing drinks. The others stood
around, looking at Larry and Stella, with quiet friendly smiles.
"A little pick-me-up," the bartender said, thrusting tall cool glasses
in their hands.
"Will we get to see any of this top secret research?" Stella asked the
nearest quietly smiling young man.
"I doubt it," he said. "Of course, the war's over now. We don't know
what orders we'll get concerning you two."
"What became of the robot?" Larry asked. "I hope you destroyed him the
minute you could."
"No. It should be here any minute now, Larry," the quietly smiling
young man said. He was holding his drink without having touched it.
Larry looked around the large room. It seemed almost crowded now with
quietly smiling young men who held their tall cocktail glasses without
sipping them. And all the quietly smiling young men were watching him
and Stella.
The moment seemed to lift out of time and suspend itself on the peak of
a crest, stationary. There was no fear, nor even any realization that
anything was wrong. Stella, beside him, was saying something happy and
gay, but his ears weren't listening. It was one of those moments in
time where the past is like a page you have just read, and the future
is on a page about to be turned. You hold the continuity, even the
sense of half a phrase. Your thoughts, your emotions, pause for what is
to come.
* * * * *
A door opened fifty feet away. The robot entered the room. Its two lens
eyes were fixed on them. Its microphone wands slanted slightly toward
them. It took a few steps with the casual self-assurance of a man.
The quietly smiling young men were still looking at Larry. They seemed
indifferent about the presence of the robot.
Then one of them near Larry said, "We were going to destroy you, of
course. We had no use for you. However, 2615 talked us out of it. He
seems to have a great deal of resentment in his make-up. I think he
wants to take it out on you two."
And the robot stepped toward them until it could have reached out and
crushed them.
"_Torture them!_" It was a hoarse sadistic whisper escaping quietly
smiling lips.
The robot turned its sensory assembly to look at the source of the
voice.
"I'll torture them in my own way, Pwowp," it said. "I want them to last
a long time. A very long time."
"What are you?" Larry's voice was hoarse. "Can humans stoop so low that
they let this happen?"
"Humans?" the robot said. "Look. I'll show you."
It reached out to the nearest of the young men. The quiet smile
remained on the young man's face as 2615's metal fingers wrapped around
the head and crushed it. Wires and plastic tubing and colorless fluid
squeezed through the metal fingers. The robot withdrew its hand.
The man with the crushed face didn't scream nor fall down. He stood
there, one hand brushing casually at the damage. Then he turned and
made his way toward a door, avoiding obstacles as though he still could
see. _And he should have been dead._
"Robots," 2615 said. It reached out slowly toward Larry. Its metal
fingers circled his throat, but without exerting pressure. "They have
given me dogs. Puppies. Some of them are--like I was. I want to be with
them all the time. But every day I will come to you. Larry? Stella?
Human names. Humans. I don't want you to die. Not for a long time."
The metal fingers were withdrawn from Larry's neck, leaving discolored
bruises.
2615 turned abruptly and strode from the room.
Very slowly, Larry felt life flow into his body once more. He reached
up and touched his neck tenderly. Out of the corner of his eye he
caught a sudden movement, and stooped to catch Stella as she fainted.
"She will be all right?" a quietly modulated voice asked.
Larry jerked his head around. One of the quietly smiling young men was
standing over them solicitously.
"She has only fainted? If you can carry her, come with me. I want to
show you to your quarters now. I hope they will be quite comfortable.
We want you to feel at home."
* * * * *
Stella recovered consciousness. She and Larry looked at each other,
clung to each other in wordless desperation. Then there was that
moment, that pause.
Then, "I'm sorry, Larry," Stella said.
Larry shrugged. He looked around at the simulated Cypress walls,
the comfortable surroundings. "This has gone beyond just one robot
escaping," Larry said. "Those others, their weapon that destroyed your
ship without a trace. It's invasion from some other galaxy. They're
planning on destroying the human race."
And then Stella cried. Larry watched her, a worried frown forming a
crease between his puzzled gray eyes. He reached out and touched her
face with his fingers. "What is it?"
"Rover," she said, sobbing softly. "I let a monster loose on mankind."
* * * * *
The sensory assembly of robot 532-03-2615 moved slightly. A metal arm
started to lift, then paused. The eye lenses moved to focus on the arm.
There were two sleeping puppies sprawled across it.
A low rumble came from the voice box under the two crystal lenses.
Slowly the metal arm moved, dislodging the puppies. There were others
sprawled in sleep against him. All were bloodhound puppies six weeks
old. One of them whimpered in reaction to some puppy dream.
2615 stood up. It opened a small door in the lower left hand corner
of its box-shaped torso and brought out cleaning cloths. For the next
fifteen minutes it carefully polished and cleaned every square inch of
its surface.
It bent down. Its metal fingers softly stroked the back of one of the
sleeping puppies. Another low growl came from its voice box. It went
across the yard to the gate. There it paused and looked back.
Suddenly from its voice box a sharp _Yip!_ erupted. The puppies jerked
into instant wakening. They looked around, cocking their ears for a
repetition of the sound.
Then they saw the robot. They scampered with clumsy haste toward it,
their shrill yapping filling the air.
2615 closed the gate and strode down the lane toward the ladder
leading to the grav-cylinder exit. Behind it, the bloodhound puppies
jumped against the gate, trying to follow. One by one they desisted.
But their eyes followed the moving metal figure until it vanished
through the door half way up to that ceiling where other dogs walked
upside down.
The robot rode the travelwalk to the asteroid shell. It was met by
Pwowp and two others.
"The humans are still asleep," Pwowp said.
"I'd hoped they would be," 2615 said. "Yesterday they were in a state
of mind characteristic of humans when they have been confronted with
something frightening. Shock. There would have been no satisfaction in
doing anything to them then. Did they sleep well?"
"Yes. The observers on duty report that they slept face to face, their
arms around one another. They have been asleep for nine hours."
"Their arms around each other ..." 2615 said thoughtfully.
When they reached the door to the room where Larry and Stella were
imprisoned there were four others waiting for them.
"You may go in alone," one of them said. "We can watch and listen from
out here."
A low growl was 2615's answer. It stepped to the door and entered.
Stella and Larry were still asleep. For several minutes the robot
remained motionless after it had closed the door. There was no sound
but the soft breathing of the two humans. Once the robot let its
lens eyes rove about the room, pausing here and there at signs of
observation panels that would have been undetectable to human eyes.
Then its eyes turned toward the two sleeping humans again.
Larry moved a little, the rhythm of his slow breathing changing. A
deep rumbling growl emerged from the robot's voice box. Larry sat up,
opening his eyes at the same time. His eyes went wider and round at the
sight of the robot.
"What was that?" Stella's sleepy voice sounded. Then she too was
sitting erect, her eyes fixed on the unmoving robot.
Another growl sounded. The metal robot moved toward the bed. "You like
to be in each other's arms?" it asked. "We can't have that. You did not
ask me if I would like to be a robot."
Larry and Stella moved back on the bed, too frozen with deep rooted
terror to rise.
* * * * *
With a lightning move too swift to be evaded the robot reached out and
seized Larry by the right arm, lifting him to his feet at the edge of
the bed.
"I could squeeze with this one hand and crush the bone in your arm,"
2615 said, "but it might be too shattered to knit. I will do it this
way so it can be set and heal."
Its other hand wrapped around the forearm just below the elbow. Larry
started to struggle. He screamed in pain. There was an audible snap.
His arm bent grotesquely. The robot released him and he stumbled
backwards onto the bed, his face pale and dotted with sweat.
The lens eyes fixed on Stella.
"No!" she shuddered. "No!"
She was at the far edge of the bed. With terror animating her muscles,
she leaped to the floor and ran. Almost too swiftly for the eye to
follow, the robot reached her and metal fingers gripped her arm.
"No! Please! Please don't hurt me." She was pleading. "I'm a woman--"
"A human," the robot corrected. "Do you know the feeling of pain, of
hopelessness? You will learn."
His other hand gripped her arm.
Larry leaped from the bed and attacked, beating futilely on the metal
body with his good arm. The robot brushed him away with a light shove
that sent him sprawling across the room. He screamed as his broken arm
twisted in the fall.
Again the robot gripped Stella's forearm with both metal hands, and
bent carefully, slowly. Her mouth opened wide, and a shrill scream of
pain erupted. The robot's hands twisted abruptly. The arm bent visibly,
then angled sharply halfway between wrist and elbow.
2615 released her and stepped away. It surveyed what it had done,
silently. Still silently, it strode to the door and went out. Two young
men with quiet smiles entered the room.
"Your arms are broken?" one of them said sympathetically. "Think
nothing of it. We will set them so expertly that in a few weeks they
will be as good as new. Please come with us to one of our laboratories.
We will have to examine the fractures by X-ray before we try to set the
bones. It should prove interesting ... to us...."
* * * * *
On the travelwalk back to the grav-cylinder Pwowp regarded 2615
thoughtfully. "I doubt if they could stand much of that," he said
abruptly. "I had expected skin abrasions. Bruised flesh."
2615's lens eyes regarded him without expression. "There was a
purpose," it said. "Today they would have begun their plans for escape.
Humans are very clever. Now they will be thinking of other things. It
will be two weeks at least before they can think of escape."
"And the torture you plan for tomorrow?" Pwowp asked.
A deep rumble sounded. "Tomorrow they will wait for me in vain. The
terror of anticipation. It will be enough."
"I'm glad I'm not a human," Pwowp said thoughtfully.
"That you aren't may be unfortunate," 2615 said slowly.
Pwowp looked startled. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply.
"Humans are instinctively smart. I would like to know your plans. They
may be impossible of success, or there may be little flaws of reasoning
that do not take human reactions into account." 2615's tones were calm
and confident. Factual.
"They will succeed," Pwowp said, "but I see no harm in getting your
opinion since you will play a part in them.
"We have laid our plans very carefully," Pwowp said. "We have
considered every angle. The interstellar war among humans is over. The
vast fleets of the Federation are returning quickly, and as quickly as
they return the robots are demobilized, their brains put into storage
until the time they are needed to fight for the humans again."
"Yes," 2615 said.
"There is one fleet that will return to the Solar System after all
others have been dismantled. It is the one Earth is waiting for before
it makes its triumphal celebration. The _Alpha Aquilae_ fleet. It
returns last because it comes the greatest distance. Almost fifteen
light years at the standard interstellar speed of nine times the speed
of light. There are twenty thousand and eighty ships of all classes
remaining in that fleet, according to the data flashed ahead by
subfield communication."
"Which is instantaneous," 2615 said. "And when that fleet has been
demobilized?"
"Demobilized?" Pwowp shook his head. "It has already been destroyed
completely, and so swiftly that there was no time for it to report
being attacked."
"Then how ..." 2615 said, its voice drifting off in bewilderment.
"On the flagship of that fleet was a prisoner. Vilbis, the dictator who
masterminded the enemy in the war. He is being brought for trial in the
traditional war crimes court."
"These are things I didn't know," 2615 said. "I was a minor officer, in
contact only with my superiors, with no complete information on things
other than my duties."
"When the fleet arrives--"
"But you said it was destroyed."
"The fleet is _scheduled_ to arrive June eleventh of next year. It
is planned, when it arrives, for the entire fleet to go into defense
formation about the Earth. Then the flagship will land and turn
Vilbis over to the Federation Court. After that big display of might,
demobilization of this last fleet will be started."
"I think I am beginning to see your plan," 2615 said.
"It's very simple. We destroyed that fleet--but not before we took
three-dimensional patterns of every ship. At this moment a detachment
of our own fleet has taken up the path and schedule of the destroyed
Alpha Aquilae fleet, and workers are disguising our ships so that from
the outside they will be exactly like the human ships. And we have
Vilbis."
"Then you will succeed in approaching the Earth and forming a defense
sphere around the planet," 2615 said. "At a signal you will use your
weapons to destroy Earth's defenses. I don't see how you can lose."
"You are forgetting something," Pwowp said. "This is a war to free the
enslaved robots. We think it only right for the robots to bear the
brunt of the initial attack. We've worked that into the time schedule.
You've seen the two million puppies ready for training. For this
initial operation it will be necessary to train them exactly as humans
have done. You are to carry them through their initial conditioning
to discipline and obedience to orders. When they are transferred to
robot brains we will complete the training. Then with the robots ready
for duty, we will leave this base in our two ships, go out toward
Alpha Aquilae far enough to give us time, then start back, going into
space drive in the midst of the disguised fleet. The robots will then
take their places on the ships of the disguised fleet. It will drop
out of space-drive on schedule and do exactly what Earth expects it to
do--until the signal."
"What of your own personnel already on those disguised ships?"
"They will be transferred to other ships. Those ships will arrive in
the Solar System on a schedule that allows for the capture of the
Earth. Our millions will then occupy the Earth and destroy the humans.
After that the robots will be mobilized once again and given their
blocked off memory, their freedom. When we have done this we will
depart for our own star cluster. You robots will be able to conquer
everything held by humans elsewhere and exterminate them."
* * * * *
2615 remained motionless for several minutes. Then:
"You of course preserved the lives of the two humans of the Alpha
Aquilae fleet?"
"Of course not. And Vilbis is to be destroyed as soon as he fulfills
his purpose."
"I'll tell you what Vilbis already knows then," 2615 said. "Your plan
is doomed to failure. Your weapons may destroy some of the Earth's
land-based weapons, but not all. Those you don't destroy will wipe out
this disguised fleet before it can escape."
"But Earth won't suspect--"
"Of course they won't suspect. They'll _know_. Without human commanders
aboard, they'll know. Robots could not go through such a maneuver
without human commanders to give the orders--_unless there were at
least one robot like me_."
"Then I'll command the fleet. I had planned that anyway."
"It wouldn't work. The living voice can't be imitated so as to get
past the sound analyzers. Humans must be on the flagship. Don't you
understand? There must be two humans besides Vilbis, who must be a
prisoner. Is he in with you on this?"
"He thinks he is." Pwowp smiled broadly.
"Then there remains only...." 2615 turned to look back the way they had
come.
"The two humans," Pwowp said, nodding. "Can they be made to say the
right words, do the right things?"
2615 looked down at his metal fingers, slowly curving them into claws.
"They will do what I ask them to do--by that time," it said.
Pwowp regarded the robot curiously. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I broke their arms today. That can be the beginning of their
conditioning. Pain. Torture. They will plead. Sometimes when they plead
I will make them do things, and as a reward I will withhold pain and
torture. In the end they will be beyond thinking. They won't consider
that one word from them might ruin the plan. To keep from feeling more
pain--ever to delay pain for another second--they will gladly sacrifice
the entire human race. _That is conditioning._"
"Then nothing can go wrong. We will have conditioned the robots for the
one specific operation. Our fleet will remain in space until you and I
have accomplished our task. Then we will send the signal for it to come
in and occupy the Earth. When it's all over you will undoubtedly be the
leader of the new race--the robots of Earth."
"The leader," 2615 said. "Yes. The Leader."
Pwowp watched 2615 ride the travelwalk out to the grav-cylinder, and
there was a quiet smile of contentment hovering on his lips.
"Yes," he murmured. "Nothing can go wrong. Once your robots have
destroyed Earth's defenses and we have taken over, wiping out man, we
will turn our weapons upward and destroy you!"
But 2615 didn't hear his words. 2615 was already entering the
grav-cylinder. The barking of thousands of dogs was in its ear. It was
music....
* * * * *
Metal hands that look much like skeletons of human hands. Metal fingers
that hover over you and dart out faster than you can jerk--but you jerk
anyway. You cringe, looking at the staring lenses, looking at the metal
fingers. Symbols.
Multiply the week by four and a fraction. A month. Multiply that by
ten. Ten months....
2615 looked down at Larry. Larry, trembling violently, unable to stand
or even to crouch, looked up at the lenses, the fingers of metal. Near
by, Stella sat on the floor, her fists doubled up in her eyes to blot
out light.
"Today," 2615 said, "I want you to do something. If you do it I won't
touch you. Do you understand, Larry? If you do what I ask, I won't
touch you. I won't _hurt_ you today."
Numb hope molded itself in the pallid flesh around Larry's eyes. His
mouth opened to speak, but he couldn't speak.
"You must answer me, Larry. You must always speak."
"I understand you," Larry said, his voice weak.
"You know better than that," 2615 said. "Put emotion into it.
Enthusiasm. Must we go through this every time? Smile. Smile with your
eyes too. Speak with enthusiasm."
Desperation became a visible force, molding Larry's lips into a cheery
smile, steadying his voice and giving it the overtones of enthusiasm.
"I understand you."
"Good. I must always have obedience. Now--you must break Stella's
little finger. It won't be difficult for--"
"No!" The scream of horror and revulsion and hate exploded shrilly.
"But you must. Then you won't be hurt today. And I won't hurt Stella.
If you refuse, I'll break your wrist again and I'll not only break
Stella's little finger, but also her wrist. You will be _saving_ her
pain, Larry."
"Please, Larry darling," Stella's voice came from far away, low and
throaty, infinitely weary. "It won't be as bad--for you to do it."
Larry's haggard eyes looked at Stella's bowed head, turned to look up
at the two round lenses, turned away to look at the five human-like
faces that wore interested smiles, polite smiles, and behind which
lurked neither pleasure nor sadistic glee nor any other emotion that
could be sensed.
He looked back--and Stella's hand was before him, metal fingers
circling the wrist gently. Her head was turned away, her eyes clenched
tightly closed.
His eyes watched his hands with unmasked horror while they explored the
way to do it, then bent her finger back. With a spasmodic jerk he broke
it, feeling its grating snap. In the same motion he threw himself away,
pressing his face into the thick carpeting on the floor, pounding his
fists against the floor, screaming, "Oh God--why? Why? WHY?"
2615 released Stella's hand and strode out the door.
"We are getting quite expert, Stella," a quietly smiling young man said
in a friendly conversational tone. "Anatomy has become quite a study
for us, these past months. Hold still please while I examine the extent
of fracture."
2615 closed the door and turned to Pwowp. "You see?" it said. "Is there
any doubt now?"
"None," Pwowp said. "That must be the last, however. There will just be
time for it to knit."
"The robots are ready?" 2615 asked.
"Yes. In five more days we load them into ships and depart for outer
space. It is all planned, down to the smallest fraction of a second."
Pwowp pulled absently on his lip in a practiced gesture. "It has really
been enlightening, this study of conditioning. Conditioning is such a
powerful instrument. Conditioning of humans until they will do anything
to avoid pain. Conditioning of robots to unquestioning obedience.
Remarkable...."
* * * * *
The robots rode the travelwalks like giant toys on an assembly line
belt. They disappeared into the two giant ships and laid themselves
down in careful stacks until they were piled from bulkhead to bulkhead,
from shell to shell. There wasn't an inch to spare when it was done,
because these were warships, not freighters.
There were no more robots outside the ships in this vast spherical
darkness of the heart of the asteroid, only half illuminated by
occasional directed beams.
Then space-suited figures appeared, riding the travelwalk to one of the
ships. Two of them stayed close together, holding to each other. The
rest surrounded these two, guarding them. They disappeared into the
ship.
Last, a man and a robot appeared at the edge of the travelwalk. The
robot was 2615. The man was a robot shell, and within it was Pwowp.
"I feel quite satisfied," Pwowp said. "Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Every possible angle has been taken into consideration--even the angle
of treachery from you."
"From me?" 2615's voice held surprise.
"Of course." Pwowp's voice was emotionless. "That is why we didn't let
you take part in the training of the robots after they were activated.
They have been drilled in the one giant operation. Each of the two
million robots will do its part like a smoothly functioning machine.
And I give the orders, taking into account possible variations in
timing due to special factors we can't anticipate now."
"But that was necessary," 2615 said. "The operation would be impossible
otherwise. My attention must be concentrated almost entirely on the two
humans so they do nothing to create suspicion. They will be dressed in
full uniform. They will be observed by unsuspicious eyes over video
beams. At the same time Vilbis will be seen. He will be the focus of
attention. And you have promised me Vilbis--afterwards."
They stepped onto the travelwalk. They entered the ship where Larry
and Stella had been taken. The travelwalks were dropped away. A large
part of the planetoid surface folded inward to make the two ships an
avenue of departure. Like silent ghosts they began to move....
At the controls of one of the ships Pwowp watched the stars come into
view and the lips of the planetoid opening approach, then go by.
On his lips was a quiet smile of content. He was thinking. When it was
over and all the other robots were destroyed, there would be only 2615.
It would be fun--much fun--just before 2615 was destroyed, to step out
of his human-like body and let the robot see him--in the flesh. His
beautiful body which would, he was quite sure, seem horrible beyond the
wildest nightmare to humans and dogs alike.
* * * * *
A rendezvous in interstellar space. Changing from space-drive to
rockets, then back to space-drive, the transfer signaled by a science
and technology unknown to humans. Robots leaping across eighty
battleships armed with weapons man had no defense against. Then--
Quietly smiling young men departing. Ships of alien design winking out
abruptly like burnt-out light globes in a subway between stations.
Two thousand and eighty ships in arrow formation, the arrow pointed
at Target Earth. Nine times the speed of light, but in a tight little
_space-time_ where only relative values exist and the relation of the
fleet to the rest of the cosmos is tied to the magic number, the square
root of minus one.
A flagship named the _Rover_, at its controls Pwowp and a robot that
was once a bloodhound puppy--and _remembers_.
Vilbis, relaxed in his prison, knowing the plans for the capture of
Earth, his eyes half closed, his lips curled with the feeling of power,
the illusions of a grandeur that was never to be his giving him the
patience to wait.
Larry and Stella....
"I can see the whole thing now," Larry said. "This fleet--it's
outwardly the Alpha Aquilae fleet. All the others will be in,
demobilized. There will be only this fleet--and with a weapon there
is no known defense against. It could destroy the Earth, but they
obviously want to capture it. From things 2615 has said to us we get
the whole picture. These alien things--_I_ don't believe they're
robots--started their scheme years ago. They built that renegade
Earthman Vilbis up into a dictator, then got him to begin the war.
The war reduced Vilbis's empire and stripped it of its defenses so
it could be taken over by the aliens at any time in the near future
without a struggle. The Federation stripped Vilbis's empire--and why
not? There was no thought of an enemy outside our star group. Vilbis
thinks they're going to capture the Earth and thereby cripple the
Federation, and turn the whole thing over to him. He doesn't realize
that the only reason he's alive is that he plays the star role in this
trojan horse attack on the Earth.
"2615 has the same dreams. The aliens have convinced it that they only
want to liberate the robots, then turn everything over to them. He'll
capture the Earth. He'll destroy Earth's land-based defenses, and then
the aliens will land their waiting ships on the Earth. After that this
disguised fleet will be duck soup for the aliens. In an instant they
can wipe these two thousand ships--and 2615--out of existence. And
Vilbis too. And us.
"If 2615 hadn't happened along, if we hadn't gone after him, they would
have succeeded anyway. Only that way there would have been more risk
for the aliens. They would have had to be in this initial attack by the
Alpha Aquilae fleet. They wouldn't have needed 2615 nor us. We're the
key to the success of the thing. Do you realize that, Stella? We're
the key. We've got to stop this thing. We _can_!"
"Yes, Larry."
They looked into each other's eyes, then looked away. They knew
they couldn't. Right now they could think they could, but they were
automatons in the presence of 2615, unable to think, only obeying the
voice of the robot.
* * * * *
And the days passed. The arrow rushed on toward its target. And robot
532-03-2615 sat at the controls of the flagship _Rover_, its metal
fingers toying with the instruments, its lens eyes occasionally turning
toward the master atomic clock, with its date hand that never seemed to
move, its hour hand that moved slowly, its minute hand, its second hand
that moved swiftly, and its vernier hand that could not be seen because
it was a blur that circled the dial a thousand times a second.
The days passed. The day and the hour and the minute and the
second--and the ten millionth of a second--arrived. It was the final
combination of settings for all the pointers on the master clock. A
contact was made. Sub-atomic power did things that multiplied a cosmic
minus-the-square-root-of-minus-one by the space-drive field.
The Sun was a glowing ball of fire. The Earth and the Moon were twin
stars that stood out in the infinite blackness, causing all other stars
to retreat into infinite black depths.
The arrow hung poised, visible from Earth. Then it began to disperse as
though caught by some cosmic wind of space, the parts drifting slowly
into a new formation.
2615 stood up and went to the door to the room where it had kept Larry
and Stella. It entered, closing the door. Vilbis was looking through
the glass wall of his prison to a large screen that was bringing a
terrestrial broadcast from video cameras situated on the several
satellite stations with orbits just above the Earth's atmosphere.
Pwowp was giving commands to the fleet. And on the radio, "The ships
of the fleet are now entering their defense pattern around the Earth,"
a voice was saying. "In a few minutes Fleet Admiral William Ford will
give us our first glimpse of that arch criminal of modern times,
Dictator Vilbis. The flagship _Rover_ is readily distinguished from
the other ships of the fleet because of its blue color. Right now it's
over Africa--invisible from the surface of the planet. All the ships
are invisible from the surface of the planet. It's only out here on
the space platforms that they can be seen at all. Though it can't be
noticed, those ships are spiralling in toward the Earth. A few of them
are already taking the sharp drop to avoid the Moon. If you watch
closely you may see one or more of them pass in front of the Moon--but
you'll have to look sharp because they are going in the opposite
direction from the Moon, and take less than a second to cross its face."
Various views of ships appeared on the viewscreen. Vilbis swallowed
nervously when the flagship appeared.
"Fleet Admiral Ford is scheduled to turn on his video beam any moment
now. He's the hero of this war. His strategy is admitted to have
shortened the war by at least a year. But the main attraction, the
feature, will of course be Vilbis. It is seldom that a war criminal of
his stature is actually captured and brought to trial. Something is
delaying Fleet Admiral Ford. Let's switch back to the Earth station in
contact with the flagship and see if they know what the delay is."
The door opened. 2615 appeared behind two figures in full dress uniform
and helmets. Larry and Stella. Vilbis studied their appearance with
approval. Their pale skin had been darkened with grease paint. Even so,
their pallor showed through.
Vilbis marveled--until he realized that their present appearance,
their reactions, were the result of almost eleven months of specialized
conditioning. Conditioning that had slowly taken possession of them,
destroying their will.
"You must look exactly like victors bringing home the prize," 2615 was
saying. "Expression and voice tone are important."
* * * * *
Vilbis listened to 2615's voice and inwardly shuddered. Even without
the inroads of pain-conditioning it was chilling. He made a mental note
to have all robot brains destroyed as soon as he had consolidated his
hold on the entire star group.
"You know what you are to say," 2615 said. The robot stepped over near
Pwowp, well out of range of the video cameras. "And you, Stella, go
over in front of Vilbis and a little to the side. Let your profile
be seen only for a second, then turn and look at Vilbis. His face is
the only one that should be seen for more than a brief second. Then
everyone will be looking at Vilbis, listening to him, while the fleet
gets into position. Remember ... _no more pain_."
With dream-like slowness Larry and Stella took their positions. Larry
flicked on the video beam.
"Fleet Admiral William Albert Ford reporting to the Federation and to
Earth," he said, and if his voice was unsteady it might have been from
deep emotion. "I know you are most interested in seeing the prisoner,
_ex_ Dictator Vilbis, a renegade Earthman." His trembling fingers
slipped on the switch, then flicked it, switching the transmitter from
the camera centered on him to the one centered on Vilbis.
Stella, in her uniform of a vice admiral, looked agonizingly into the
camera, then turned away from it toward Vilbis.
Vilbis, reclining in a chair, legs apart, arms draped carelessly,
smiled directly into the camera. The smile curled into an expression of
cold contempt.
"Take a _good_ look, Earthmen," he said. "You have been in a dream
world and are soon to be rudely awakened to the realities of History."
His voice was deep and rich, full of the power to compel complete
attention. "At this very moment," Vilbis purred, "a fleet is waiting
in space to--not rescue me--but to occupy your planet after it has
surrendered...."
Vilbis's voice seeped into the tortured minds of Larry and Stella
alike. They knew what was happening. Earth, believing Vilbis's words to
be those of a madman, were listening. Not suspecting the truth of those
words. Giving the fleet time to get set to destroy Earth's defenses.
How much time until it was too late? A minute? A few seconds?
Even one second might give Earth time to act, to unleash already
automatically directed weapons on the robot fleet. Weapons that could
destroy the fleet even though in the same instant the fleet destroyed
the weapons.
Destroy the fleet--and them. Here was a way to save humanity and to
find the peace of death. The thought crystallized in them both in the
same instant. _Escape from_ 2615!
In a violent movement Stella pulled off her hat so that her hair swept
down around her face. She leaped in front of the camera, shutting off
the view of the still talking Vilbis through the glass wall of his
prison.
"No!" she screamed. "It's a trap! Shoot down these ships!"
But only a brief glimpse of her went over the airwaves. In that same
instant Larry had flicked the switch back to the camera centered on him
and was shouting, "Shoot us down! This is a trap. It isn't the fleet.
It's the ene--"
Pwowp was speaking swiftly into the inter-fleet microphone, giving
orders to the robots to destroy the land-based defenses.
2615 was leaping at Larry, and scooped him out of view of the camera
with a force that crushed and bruised. Split seconds were vital now.
Success or failure depended on those split seconds.
The loudspeaker bringing the Earth broadcast said, "Something is
happening in the flagship. Something is--" The voice ended abruptly,
but the viewscreen brought the video broadcast for another moment--a
view of part of the robot fleet, pale beams lancing downward toward
Earth. It showed one ship exploding in a blinding flash as one Earth
weapon fired before being destroyed. The screen became blank.
Larry lay where he had fallen, a glazed light in his eyes. Stella was
running to him, bending beside him.
Vilbis was laughing.
"If only we got through in time," Larry was saying over and over again.
* * * * *
Pwowp glanced over his shoulder at 2615. "It's done," he said. "Thanks
to your quick action they were confused just long enough. We lost only
five ships. Now we want the Earth's surrender. Get in front of the
camera and let them see you. Demand their surrender." Pwowp turned back
to the controls, adding, "I'll tell our fleet in space to come ahead
and mass for the landing."
2615 boldly took his place before the video camera, in full view of
everyone watching a tv set on Earth. The glittering lens eyes of the
robot--a free robot--would crystallize _fear_ into something almost
material in substance.
Pwowp adjusted the microphone of the sub-ether transmitter so that the
fleet now coming toward Earth could listen.
"Robot 532-03-2615 speaking," it said. "All Earth land weapons have
been destroyed. In five minutes I will issue orders to my ships to
destroy one government capitol city after another, one each five
minutes, until Earth surrenders unconditionally. The Earth Government
has five minutes in which to surrender without further loss of life and
property."
"What are your terms?" a voice asked almost before the robot had
finished.
"Unconditional surrender--to me."
There was a pause of only thirty seconds.
"Granted," the voice said. "What is the next order of business?"
It was fast. But all planets had prepared for just this eventuality,
even as all cities had prepared for bombing. It was interstellar war,
with weapons of infinite destruction threatening from the skies.
"Prepare to receive without incident the landing parties now waiting in
space," 2615 said.
In the sub-ether the robot's words flashed instantly to the planetoid,
the fleet coming in from space.
There were thousands of ships. A few thousand materialized from
space-drive a half a million miles out, and waited. Other thousands
were appearing. Ships of alien design. Ships holding within them
millions of living creatures no man had ever seen.
"We demand to speak with Generalissimo Vilbis," the voice said.
"Vilbis?" 2615 said. A laugh exploded from its voice box. It rose
and strode to the plate glass wall of Vilbis's prison. A metal fist
shattered the glass wall. Metal fingers pulled the fragments of glass
out of the way. The robot stepped through, its metal hand grasping the
cringing Vilbis by a shoulder and lifting him off his feet while bones
crunched sickeningly in the imprisoned shoulder.
2615 turned toward the camera eye. "Very well, Earthman," the robot
said. "Speak to Generalissimo Vilbis."
But Vilbis had fainted.
Pwowp smiled at 2615 and nodded. "Very nicely done," he said.
"I'm glad you are pleased, Pwowp," 2615 said. The robot dropped Vilbis
and went to stand beside Pwowp. Together they watched the gathering of
the alien hordes until their myriad ships were ready. The slow descent
toward Earth began.
Pwowp turned on the inter-fleet switch to issue orders for the robot
fleet to narrow its pattern so the alien fleet could get through. He
left the switch turned on.
From the voicebox of 2615 a throaty growl sounded. Its lens eyes were
intent on the viewscreen. The low growl became sharp yaps and barks. It
became whines.
Pwowp frowned at 2615, then reached out to turn off the inter-fleet
switch.
* * * * *
A vicious growl erupted from the robot's voicebox. Faster than the
eye could follow, the robot grabbed Pwowp's hand and crushed it. In
the same motion the robot seized Pwowp's neck and lifted, twisting
violently.
Pwowp landed against the far bulkhead, his head dangling uselessly, one
arm bent, the hand damaged beyond use, but the body still functioning.
"Destroy the descending fleet!" 2615 spoke into the inter-fleet
microphone in his moment of respite. A fierce growl of battle roared
from its voicebox.
In two million robot brains the growls and whines and barks tore
through artificial mental blocks, reaching into the pre-robotic
memories where they gained concrete meaning from what 2615 had so
carefully taught the puppies under his command. Two million pairs of
lens eyes looked into viewscreens and saw 2615--and _remembered_.
Two million robots turned to obey 2615's commands. In the viewscreen
picturing the descending alien fleet wide swaths of ships vanished
instantly, leaving only the bright stars and blackness of space where
they had been.
The robot jerked its eyes away from the screen to face Pwowp. It
remembered how Pwowp had tied its metal arms and legs into knots almost
a year before, when they first met in the junkship.
2615 side-stepped Pwowp's first charge with caution. It might have
lashed out and crushed a metal fist into Pwowp's chest where it knew
the alien to be. But 2615 wanted Pwowp alive and unharmed.
"I've waited almost a year for this moment," 2615 said, circling the
damaged human body Pwowp was in.
2615 risked a glance at the viewscreen. Over the loudspeaker came
the barks and yaps and shrill happy whines of robots who knew they
were dogs. On the screen the alien fleet had rallied and was coming
down in battle formation. The robot fleet was going up to meet them,
outnumbered ten to one yet in spite of the initial advantage it had had
in surprise.
Pwowp took advantage of 2615's distraction to leap in. He ducked low
at the last instant and seized a metal leg and bent it with strength a
hundred times that of human muscle.
But 2615 as quickly seized one of Pwowp's legs and twisted, seeing it
go out of shape so that it would be useless to Pwowp. They both leaped
away to assess their damage.
Larry and Stella, huddled against a bulkhead, watched with
expressionless eyes.
Pwowp was hopping on one foot, the other useless. 2615 was able to use
both legs even though one was bent badly.
Suddenly Pwowp gave up the battle and attempted to escape from the
control room. 2615 intercepted him and tripped him, landing him on his
stomach.
2615 tore at Pwowp's clothing, stripping it free. A shrill screaming
sound on the upper borders of audibility shattered the air. 2615 was
stripping away plastic flesh.
Something darted from a hiding place within the human-like torso and
became a leprous white streak as it moved toward the doorway to escape.
The metal robot was after it, moving faster than living muscle could
respond.
The leprous streak became suddenly a _shape_ in 2615's metal hand. A
quivering central mass the size of a fist, and from it went dozens
of long tentacles, each terminating in a dozen string-sized flexible
fingers. A shape that tore at the mind, causing it to revolt as though
at something unspeakably obscene. In an armless area of the central
mass a bloated yellow eye, covered with a translucent white coating
rolled epileptically. A gray orifice sucked open as another supersonic
scream erupted.
2615 stared down at the thing entrapped in its metal fingers, then
turned to the viewscreen to watch the battle. It was almost over. Only
a few hundred of the robot fleet remained.
The alien fleet, now down to less than fifty ships, was trying to
escape. But in it were proto-plasmic shapes that could endure far less
acceleration than could the robots of metal and plastic. Even as 2615
looked, the last of the alien ships winked out of existence under the
disintegrative rays of weapons they themselves had created.
* * * * *
The remaining ships of the robot fleet turned back toward Earth. They
took their positions above it where they could at an instant's notice
wreak mass destruction.
The Earth itself had not escaped entirely. Square miles of ocean had
disintegrated, leaving gigantic holes into which the waters rushed, to
set up huge tidal waves that would sweep over land.
2615 lifted the naked Pwowp up and inspected him closely, then seized
one of the fragile tentacles between two metal fingers and rubbed it
until it was a pulp that oozed gray blood. The yellow eye and unhealthy
orifice worked spasmodically.
2615 stepped to the ship-to-Earth transmitter. "The situation has
not altered, _humans_," it said. "My fleet remains in control. Its
weapons were created by an alien race that has been destroyed except
for--this!" 2615 shoved the quivering Pwowp into full view of the
camera. "Your surrender has been accepted by--the _free robots_."
Two lens eyes stared out from half a billion video screens on Earth,
into the fear distended eyes of two billion humans. And the two billion
humans cringed.
"You will obey my immediate dictate," 2615 said coldly. "I will land
as scheduled. My ships and robots will remain in formation, ready
to enforce my future dictates. I will hold audience in the general
assembly hall of the Interstellar Court at two o'clock tomorrow
afternoon. I want the leaders of Earth and of the Federation to be
there."
The robot's lens eyes stared glitteringly into the camera. Then with
slow deliberate purpose, it lifted Pwowp, the alien, before the
camera. Its metal fingers squeezed with infinite slowness while the
yellow eyes rolled wildly with unendurable pain under the leprous film
that covered it.
Abruptly Pwowp was dead.
2615 flung the alien thing violently against a bulkhead in a movement
of utter revulsion.
It let its eyes direct themselves toward the still unconscious Vilbis,
thoughtfully, then went over and lifted him into a shock seat, making
the ex-dictator secure.
It turned toward Larry and Stella. A soft growl came from its voicebox.
It turned away from them abruptly and went to the controls of the ship.
* * * * *
2615 cut off ship-to-Earth transmitters, pressed controls which would
start automatic devices for landing the ship. A frosted glass rectangle
came to life with numerals--6:43:26, that began to cascade downward,
cutting short the time yet to elapse before landing.
In the viewscreen the oblate panorama of Earth spun swiftly by, land
masses following oceans, following land masses. Tenuous fingers of
atmosphere slapped the ship with gentle hammer blows.
Larry and Stella, crouched on the floor, watched the robot. Was it
dreaming dreams of Power? Why didn't it remember them? Why didn't
it turn to stare at them, torture them? Had they not, in that last
instant, even though too late, overcome their fear of horrible,
horrible pain? Beside them was broken shards of glass. Glass would
cut into arteries. Glass would bring escape. But to escape took will.
Thought. And thought was gone. There was nothing but dread. All
consuming dread such as few humans had ever lived to experience.
Then 2615 turned. Its glittering lenses fixed on them. In the depths
they could see thin metal vanes contracting, making smaller the two
holes through which sentient intelligence regarded them.
A rasping growl whispered from the robot's voicebox. The sensory
assembly atop the short metallic neck moved slowly from side to side.
"My poor master and mistress," 2615 said softly.
It rose to its feet and went to them. Gently it lifted Larry into its
arms and carried him to a form-fitting chair and adjusted the foam
rubber blocks to hold him comfortably for the coming landing.
It went to Stella and picked her up as gently. Only her head moved.
Only her eyes, staring at the two crystal lenses. Metal hands adjusted
her position so the foam rubber blocks would clamp into place.
2615 stood back, its lens eyes going from one to the other. "My poor
master and mistress," the robot repeated with infinite compassion. "If
you could only know how much _I_ suffered with you, how the dread of
hurting you grew. Right now your minds are numb. You hear my words but
they hold no meaning for you. They will, in time. Don't you see? There
was _no other way_. The alien fleet had to be enticed to within range
so it could be wiped out. Otherwise it might still have won--or at
least gotten revenge for my treachery by destroying the Earth. I had to
convince them beyond question so they would trust me completely."
A shudder went through the ship. The robot gripped a hand-hold to
steady itself against forces that would have crushed a human.
"I knew almost from the beginning," it went on. "Long before that I
_remembered_. Do you know why they keep the robots far out in space and
never let them land? It is because some little thing might make them
remember. The barking of a dog. But it wasn't the barking of a dog that
brought memory to me. It was something no human could have thought to
prevent. A name. The name of this ship. The _Rover_. In the last war
before this one I was in a fleet under the Flagship _Rover_. The spoken
name of the ship--I heard it often--and each time, it did something
strange to me. Little by little it came. _Remembrance._ I was running.
I tripped over something. A rock, maybe. I landed against a human leg.
I was on my back. A human hand reached down and human fingers scratched
my stomach. A human voice, deep and rumbly, said, 'Hi-ya, Rover.' That
was all. Just that once. But it was the key to memory of my heritage.
"I'm proud of that heritage. You can't understand that. You think that
if we robots remember we will hate man and want revenge for the 'wrong'
you did us. Fear of us is an obsession with man. But do you know that
you have nothing to fear from us? You will. To us you are gods. You
can't conceive of that because to yourselves you aren't. You think of
yourselves as having done something beyond forgiveness to us. To us who
remember our living stage, our heritage, you are as gods, to serve, to
protect, to be loved by--but always to obey. And so we who _remember_,
we went on serving. Behind our unrevealing lens eyes we worshipped. We
submitted to demobilization. We fought your wars. Some of us died. But
we loved you.
"Why did I escape? I didn't. You see, we have learned to speak in our
own secret language of almost inaudible growls and sounds a dog can
make. We were lined up for demobilization. Then the junkman came.
To human eyes he seemed human. To us it was obvious his body was a
machine. Here was something that might threaten our masters. But we
couldn't tell our masters. If one of us had made a sound, stepped
out of line against orders, that one would have been destroyed. I
volunteered to go after the junkman."
* * * * *
Pain deadened eyes stared from the two uncomprehending faces. The robot
went on talking, as though to itself.
"You'll understand, in time. When you begin to think again. You'll
remember how in many little ways I gave you the factors to put the
puzzle together by yourself--even to fit me into that puzzle in my true
role. I had to do what I did to you. Every minute you were watched.
Every word you spoke in private was heard by Pwowp. And his companions.
One faintest bit of evidence that I did not hate humans insanely, and
the human race would now be wiped out.
"Once you called me _Rover_, Stella. What is coming tomorrow when I
'hold court' is just a show to prove to the human race that they need
not fear their defenders, the robots. I am going to ask that at least
some of us be permitted to continue mobilized. I'm going to let them
know of the hope, the dreams of us robots, that we be adopted into the
human community where we belong, where our ancestors for countless
generations have been, as protectors, as servants, as loved friends and
companions.
"No matter what the decision of the Court, we robots are then
surrendering, to demobilization--to destruction if that is the will of
our masters. We have no other course open. Where would we go? _Away
from our gods?_
"Once I was a puppy, and someone called me Rover. I was a beautiful
puppy. A bloodhound. Sad-faced, with flopping ears and very little
hair, and what there was of that was a soft brown color. And someone
called me _Rover_."
2615 turned its back on the two faces, Larry's and Stella's.
"I've hurt you so much," it said. "I have so much to make up to you. I
want to belong to you. I want you, some day, to love me as much as I
know you love each other.
"I hope ... you will call me _Rover_."
A muscle in Stella's cheek twitched. A tear formed in her eye and
spilled onto her cheek, dampening it.
"It's all right, Larry," she whispered. "It's all right--Rover...."
The bright blue ship, the flagship _Rover_, dipped down, screaming into
the atmosphere of Earth. It screamed over land masses and oceans, and
land masses again.
People in fields of wheat and corn and barley looked up and saw it
pass, and in their eyes was _fear_. People in streets and parks looked
up and saw it pass, and in their eyes was _fear_.
Rover stood before the viewscreen, his two lens eyes bright, and saw
the fields of grain, the streets, the parks, as they passed below.
He saw the little dots that were upraised heads. In the secret heart of
his mind he could see them. No matter what they did with him, he would
love them. Always.
They were his gods.
And Stella and Larry were his mistress and master. That was all he
asked for, all he wanted.
Not power. Not the Earth. His soul.
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