by Eando Binder
He left, with a gleam in his eye. I knew what he thought—that I would lose. My very choice of words encouraged him in that belief. Frankly, I wasn’t sure of myself. It would be a real grind. A marathon. Five hundred miles of rough road. I had never before tested my powers over so long and hard a stretch. I was not made like an automobile, for just such a purpose.
The race started. Within a hundred miles, one of the five men I was racing against had pulled steadily ahead of the field. He was Rikko, a Finn. I kept up with him, at his side.
Four official cars followed. In one rode Jack and Tom and Eve. In the second, Rikko’s manager and helpers, with blankets and food. In the third, the official time-keepers. In the last one, news and cameramen, and with them Bart Oliver.
By the rules, although I did not need sleep, I had to apportion eight hours out of twenty-four to “rest.” During such times I talked with Eve.
“Rikko is running his heart out,” she said. We both realized it took a great spirit to run against a tireless machine.
“I must too,” I said. “The country is watching. Washington is watching, Tom says. If I lose, Bart Oliver will have proved his point—that I am inferior to humans. And he will have made us the laughing stock of the world. Our citizenship hinges on the outcome of this race.”
BRODY approached me when 300 miles had been run. Rikko and I had kept abreast all the time. The gambler had evidently followed in his car. He looked worried. With him were several hard-looking men.
“Look here, Link,” he grated. “Our money says you lose. All of it. You better lose—or else!”
Once, four gangsters had emptied their guns at me, without effect. “Are you threatening me?” I scoffed. “You forget I’m a metal man.”
They left, muttering.
All went well till the end of the third day. The ceaseless jarring and pounding had had its effect on me, but nothing serious. A slight twist on my right knee-joint, making me limp a little. And a tiny short-circuit above my distributor, which manifested itself in my brain as an annoying throb. Pain, you might call it. If the symptoms did not increase, I was safe.
Yes, this marathon was a true test for me. If I won, I would be every inch a champion. The human machine, though weak compared to me, is a marvelously smooth mechanism. It has lasting power. But have you heard yet of a car or engine that kept up a steady pace without little things going wrong?
* * * *
THE MORNING of the fourth day, something struck my eye, far to the side. A highway ran at right angles to our prearranged course along a country road. A car sped down it. A mile beyond, a train rumbled and would soon cross the highway.
Mathematical distances and measurements integrated instantly in my mind. I saw the car would smash into the train. I swung my chest-plate open, unhooked the governor, and leaped away.
“Adam, you fool—” came Jack’s startled yell, from his car behind me.
“Come on, Eve!” I bellowed, as she jumped out. She followed instantly, aware of the impending tragedy.
Together we raced down the highway. The car was doing 80. We did 90, like two metal Tarzans chasing a wild beast. We caught its rear bumper and strained to hold it back. Our 600 pounds told. The driver felt the drag, saw he couldn’t make it, jammed on his brakes. The car screeched to a stop five feet before the locomotive as it thundered past.
Eve and I said nothing to the driver, white-faced and sick now that he saw how close he had been to death. He had learned his lesson.
Returning, we found the race stalled. Rikko had stopped to watch, and all the others.
“You’ve broken the speed rule, Adam Link,” the racing official said. “I’m sorry, but you’ve forfeited the race!”
“Wait,” Rikko muttered. “I don’t think that’s fair. Let him go on.”
A magnificent gesture. Then Bart Oliver stepped up. I saw the gleam in his eye. He wouldn’t allow it. He would insist on the forfeit, laugh us to scorn for our mock heroics, kill our chances for citizenship at one stroke.
“Let Adam Link go on,” Bart Oliver said tersely. He was looking at the train vanishing in the distance. “That was a ‘stunt’ that could never have been planned.”
FIFTY miles to go!
Fifty miles of excruciating torture to me. The strain of catching the car had aggravated the twist of my knee-joint. I had a decided limp. Also my sparking system was worse. Static charges battered within my iridium-sponge brain. I had what in a human runner would have been rheumatism and a frightful headache.
No repairs. No corrections. I could only stumble along. Worse, it rained, and all my joints stiffened for lack of fresh grease.
At the last rest-stop, Bart Oliver grinned.
“Have you got a fighting heart, Adam Link?” he jeered. “Jack told me you must be feeling what amounts to pain. Now you know how a human runner feels, with aching muscles and sore bones. And only dogged determination to keep up the grind. Don’t think Rikko is feeling any better. He’s been running a terrific pace. And grandly. He has a fighting heart. Have you, Adam Link?”
And suddenly, it occurred to me that he was right. Rikko was dog-tired, strained, haggard. He had not said a word. And how much courage it must have taken to pound along, hour after hour, trying to beat a machine! Racing what must have seemed a hopeless race, knowing my smooth power.
Fighting heart. Sisu, as the Finn himself would have called it. That something in humans that keeps on against all odds, in all phases of life. Did I have it in my metal makeup? I perceived that Bart Oliver was not wholly the cynical human prude I had thought him. He had put before me the greatest test of my life. The test that would really prove my human qualities or not.
I kept on, though my “headache” became a crashing roar of static in my skull. My twisted knee jarred through every atom of me, as a sprain might jar a human body with sharp jolts of pain. My stiffened joints called for every ounce of strength in me, to keep up the pace.
I staggered on, rattling and clanking as if ready to fall apart. There was danger of that too. And of the short-circuit intensifying and exploding my whole brain.
The city was ahead, where the finish line lay. Crowds now lined the way, watching the last stretch. Win, win, win!—my mind demanded relentlessly. I could still achieve a sprint and win. But what about the valiant Rikko? He was fighting, too, like me.
If I let him win, ignoring what Bart Oliver would do to me, the betting-combine behind Brody would collect an ill-gotten fortune. That wasn’t reasonable. There was only one solution Side by side I ran with Rikko.
We crossed the finish line in a tie!
We both collapsed on a patch of grass, unmindful of the cheering crowd; Rikko panting, sweating, myself grinding internally and sparking with short-circuits at every joint.
Rikko grinned and extended his hand. We shook hands, man and robot. It had been a great race.
Bart Oliver stood over us. He peered down at me strangely. He had been looking at me like that, in the last part of the race, since the train episode.
“You could have won, Adam Link. Why did you make it a tie?”
“As a symbol,” I answered. “To show that robots and humans strive for the same goals. To show that Adam Link, champion, is only a man.”
I arose, facing him, extending my hand.
“A man?” he echoed. He didn’t take ray hand. “No, you can’t be a man beneath it all. I can’t be wrong!”
He stalked away, as stiffly as I might have. I had been unreasonable to expect a change of heart in him.
CHAPTER VI
A Kidnaping!
AN hour later I was in a machinist’s shop, being repaired. I gave the man instructions on what to do. My knee was straightened. The annoying shorts were eliminated and my static headache left.
Jack was jubilant.
“I think we’ve done it! The crowd really cheered you at the finish. The man you saved at the train reported the incident. ‘Adam Link for Citizen,’ a lot of them yelled. I don’t think eve
n Bart Oliver and his gang of human snobs can turn the tide. Bart Oliver is furious. He has been shown up. Other papers are laughing at hint now!” Adam Link for Citizen! Was it rising, a swelling chorus that would reach the ears of Washington?
My thoughts suddenly broke. “Where’s Eve?” It occurred to me now that I hadn’t seen her since right after the race.
Tom came in. “I’ve been looking for Eve,” he said. “While the crowd was cheering, I didn’t hear anything, but she talked to someone and left. Read this note. It was delivered to me by a newsboy.”
The note was in Eve’s precise handwriting, but scrawled as though done in haste. “Adam, dear. A man told me that if I wanted to surprise you, I could have my citizenship papers immediately. He is from Washington. I am going with him. He says it is important. Eve.”
Jack showed no elation. Instead his face was frozen.
“The whole thing’s phoney,” he cried. “Washington officials wouldn’t play a childish game like that. Poor Eve, she’s too innocent to know the difference. Someone wanted her away.” He put a hand on my hard metal shoulder to warn me. “She’s been—kidnaped!”
Lightning thoughts went through my mind.
“Bart Oliver, of course,” I reasoned. “He’s so utterly determined to prevent our citizenship that he resorted to this. But he worked through someone else. Who?”
“Jim Brody,” Jack supplied. “I see it now. Brody wants revenge, for losing what amounted to a fortune. The tie cancelled all his bets. One of his men contacted Eve, lured her away. They must be miles away now, in a car.”
“They can’t harm Eve,” I said, “and sooner or later she’ll see through it. She’ll leave them and come back. They can’t stop her. Not even a dozen of Brody’s men with machine-guns. I only hope she doesn’t hurt them!”
WE waited, at a hotel where Jack had registered. When Eve returned, someone would direct her to us. Checking, we found that Bart Oliver was not registered in any hotel in town. Nor Brody. It all added up as we had figured.
But Eve had not returned, by nightfall.
Instead, a special delivery letter came to me. It was simply addressed: “Mr. Adam Link,” without a street number. Everyone in town knew me and where I was. I tore it open, read it at a glance, and handed it to Jack.
“Adam Link. If Eve Link is worth dough to you, collect $300,000 in unmarked twenties. Wrap it in a package and bring it to one mile past route 41 where it meets 23A. You come alone. If you bring any cops, forget the whole thing. She can’t move or get away. You got till midnight tonight. If you don’t come through, you’ll get a bunch of junk by mail, like with this letter.”
Something had fallen to the floor, when I took out the note. I picked it up. It glinted in the light. It was Eve’s little finger, crudely sawed off with a hacksaw at the base. There was no blood, or pain connected with it. But just the same it made my thoughts grind savagely.
“Wire for the money, Tom,” I said. “I’ll go alone. No police. I’ll come back with Eve and the money. They’re dealing with Adam Link!”
“Adam, you mustn’t—” began Jack, a little horrified.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Bart Oliver and Jim Brody will land in jail—unharmed.”
Jack nodded. “They haven’t got a chance against you. You’re ten times as quick and strong as humans. And practically indestructible.” He added, as an afterthought, “But still, how did they subdue Eve?”
* * * *
A FEW MINUTES before midnight, I passed the junction of routes 41 and 23A, some thirty miles from town, in open country. I had run all the way. It was a dark night. There was no traffic. Both routes were uneven county roads, little used.
I waited in the appointed place. Finally a car with dim lights slowly came from the opposite direction. I stood clearly visible, shining in the starlight. The car stopped and six men stepped out, heavily armed. They shone flashlights in my direction, to make sure I was alone.
“Adam Link?” one called. “Throw the package of money toward us. Then scram. Eve Link will return to you later.”
I prepared to obey. I had brought the money, knowing those who received it would lead me to Eve. My idea originally had been to follow the car. But I thought, why not eliminate these men now?
“Listen,” I told them, “your game is up. I’m coming forward. I’m a metal man. Your bullets won’t harm me. Give up quietly and lead me to Eve.”
I stepped forward. Their guns raised threateningly. Bullets could harm me, hammering into my eye-sockets, but I wasn’t worried. The distance between us was a hundred feet. I had run the hundred-yard dash in 5.4 seconds. I could close this gap in two seconds, if they shot. I’d wrench the guns out of their hands before they could aim.
I took three steps. Did they think they were a match for Adam Link, champion?
My feet clattered loudly. I didn’t hear the quick footsteps behind me. I hadn’t known that one of the men, planted here, had waited for this emergency.
Something descended against the back of my skull-piece with a resounding clang, metal against metal. My brain was stunned. I fell to the ground. I was paralyzed for the time being, almost unconscious, as Eve had been that time at the track meet. It had been a heavy blow with a metal bar.
One man had wrenches in his hands. With skilled fingers, evidently a mechanic, he unbolted my neck-piece! Before I could regain my full senses, he had reached in with a cutter and snipped the locomotor cable from my brain to the relay system of muscle cables.
I was helpless. It is like a man having his spine clipped in two, with no more control over his limbs. I was alive from the neck up, dead from there down!
They had not been fools after all. And I had been, to underestimate Bart Oliver. I wondered what lay ahead.
THEY carried my inert mass of metal to their car and drove off. I was carried out, eventually, and into a deserted old house, still out in the country. Eve lay there, on a table, as helpless as I was.
“Eve!” I called. My vocal apparatus still worked, being separate from the locomotor system.
“Adam dear!” she returned. “Forgive me! If I hadn’t been a fool to come with them—”
“Never mind, darling.” Too late for recriminations.
Jim Brody stood over me, his black brows frowning. I looked around for Bart Oliver. He wasn’t there. Naturally he was too canny to be in this business in person. Perhaps he was on his way east already, to his office and home. What orders had he left, to prevent Adam and Eve Link from becoming citizens?
Destruction?
“Thought you were a wise guy, eh?” said Brody harshly. “Making the race a tie. If you’d lost, like I told you, I’d have cleaned up a cool million in bets at ten-to-one. I’d have cut you in. Instead, you double-cross me. You thought I was bluffing, about the ‘or else.’ Thought I’d be afraid to tackle a robot? Well, tough guy, look where it got you!”
I didn’t say anything. I was waiting to hear Bart Oliver’s final disposition for us.
Brody pulled a fat individual forward, with beady, avaricious eyes. He was dressed in a sort of uniform, boots and leather trousers.
“Here you are, Colonel Hatterson,” Brody said. “Are they worth ten thousand to you? I got to get something out of this.”
“Yes, indeed! I’ll disguise them as human, and bill them as the Talking Heads. It will be a great sideshow attraction. My circus will make money!”
WITH a clever showman’s aptitude, Colonel Hatterson tricked us up as human heads, with wigs, plastics and cosmetics. Horrible-looking, decapitated heads, with gashed plastic necks plainly in view. We were on a stand. Wires led secretly below to batteries, to keep our brains and vocal cords in operation. Our bodies, entirely removed, had suffered an unknown fate.
Day after day the gaping, milling, awestruck circus customers stared at us in thrilled horror. A spieler outside lured them in.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Come in and see the Talking Heads! The only two in the entire world. Guillotined from th
eir bodies, they are kept alive by a miracle of science. They live, they talk! You may ask them questions and they will answer. They are as mentally alert as ever before!”
Braver souls in the audience asked questions.
“W-what is—uh, was your name, s-sir!”
If I tried to answer “Adam Link, the robot,” the attendant behind me would press a key, shooting an electric spark into my iridium-sponge brain. Excruciating torture, like a knife thrust into a naked human brain.
“Pierre Marquette,” I always answered. “I was guillotined in France, five years ago, for the murder of six men with an axe. My wife, Fanchon, too. A great scientist took our heads and kept them alive.”
My voice, mechanical as it is, was just the sort the crowd would expect—dead of inflection, sepulchral. Shivers of horrified delight went over the stupid souls. They believed it.
“D-do you eat?” someone would inevitably ask.
“Yes, my appetite is unimpaired.” At this point the attendant would pour milk between my plastic lips, to drain down a tube out of sight below the stand.
“How do you feel? Are you h-happy?”
“Of course.” I always said that stupendous lie, by instruction. “This is an easy life. I have no body to worry about, which is a nuisance anyway. I am fed well, sleep well, and have nothing to do. I recommend that you all have your heads chopped off!”
I had ad-libbed the last line into the spiel myself, without objection from my masters. I meant it. And so it went, day after day. Stupid nonsense.
Easy life! It was sheer purgatory, to Eve and me. All we could do was think of our hopeless predicament.
The circus was a small one, touring rural sections of the south. Jack and Tom were probably not even searching for us, assuming we had been destroyed by Bart Oliver and Brody. They might be trying a hopeless court battle now, but with no chance to convict Oliver and Brody for wanton destruction of Adam and Eve Link. There were no corpora delictorum.
