by Simon Ings
“Since, I’ve been a refugee. From planet to planet, year after year, I’ve had to keep moving, to stay ahead of them. On several different worlds, I have published my discoveries and tried to make men strong enough to withstand their advance. But rhodomagnetic science is dangerous. Men who have learned it need protection more than any others, under the Prime Directive. They have always come, too soon.”
The old man paused, and sighed again.
“They can spread very fast, with their new rhodomagnetic ships, and there is no limit to their hordes. Wing IV must be one single hive of them now, and they are trying to carry the Prime Directive to every human planet. There’s no escape, except to stop them.”
Underhill was staring at the toylike machines, the long bright needle and the dull leaden ball, dim in the dark on the kitchen table. Anxiously he whispered, “But you hope to stop them, now—with that?”
“If we can finish it in time.”
“But how?” Underhill shook his head. “It’s so tiny.”
“But big enough,” Sledge insisted. “Because it’s something they don’t understand. They are perfectly efficient in the integration and application of everything they know, but they are not creative.”
He gestured at the gadgets on the table.
“This device doesn’t look impressive, but it is something new. It uses rhodomagnetic energy to build atoms, instead of to fission them. The more stable atoms, you know, are those near the middle of the periodic scale, and energy can be released by putting light atoms together, as well as by breaking up heavy ones.”
The deep voice had a sudden ring of power.
“This device is the key to the energy of the stars. For stars shine with the liberated energy of building atoms, of hydrogen converted into helium, chiefly, through the carbon cycle. This device will start the integration process as a chain reaction, through the catalytic effect of a tuned rhodomagnetic beam of the intensity and frequency required.
“The humanoids will not allow any man within three light-years of the Central, now—but they can’t suspect the possibility of this device. I can use it from here—to turn the hydrogen in the seas of Wing IV into helium, and most of the helium and the oxygen into heavier atoms, still. A hundred years from now, astronomers on this planet should observe the flash of a brief and sudden nova in that direction. But the humanoids ought to stop, the instant we release the beam.”
*
Underhill sat tense and frowning, in the night. The old man’s voice was sober and convincing, and that grim story had a solemn ring of truth. He could see the black and silent humanoids, flitting ceaselessly about the faintly glowing walls of that new mansion across the alley. He had quite forgotten his low opinion of Aurora’s tenants.
“And we’ll be killed, I suppose?” he asked huskily. “That chain reaction—”
Sledge shook his emaciated head.
“The integration process requires a certain very low intensity of radiation,” he explained. “In our atmosphere, here, the beam will be far too intense to start any reaction—we can even use the device here in the room, because the walls will be transparent to the beam.”
Underhill nodded, relieved. He was just a small businessman, upset because his business had been destroyed, unhappy because his freedom was slipping away. He hoped that Sledge could stop the humanoids, but he didn’t want to be a martyr.
“Good!” He caught a deep breath. “Now, what has to be done?”
Sledge gestured in the dark toward the table.
“The integrator itself is nearly complete,” he said. “A small fission generator, in that lead shield. Rhodomagnetic converter, tuning coils, transmission mirrors, and focusing needle. What we lack is the director.”
“Director?”
“The sighting instrument,” Sledge explained. “Any sort of telescopic sight would be useless, you see—the planet must have moved a good bit in the last hundred years, and the beam must be extremely narrow to reach so far. We’ll have to use a rhodomagnetic scanning ray, with an electronic converter to make an image we can see. I have the cathode-ray tube, and drawings for the other parts.”
He climbed stiffly down from the high stool and snapped on the lights at last—cheap fluorescent fixtures which a man could light and extinguish for himself. He unrolled his drawings, and explained the work that Underhill could do. And Underhill agreed to come back early next morning.
“I can bring some tools from my workshop,” he added. “There’s a small lathe I used to turn parts for models, a portable drill, and a vise.”
“We need them,” the old man said. “But watch yourself. You don’t have my immunity, remember. And, if they ever suspect, mine is gone.”
Reluctantly, then, he left the shabby little rooms with the cracks in the yellowed plaster and the worn familiar carpets over the familiar floor. He shut the door behind him—a common, creaking wooden door, simple enough for a man to work. Trembling and afraid, he went back down the steps and across to the new shining door that he couldn’t open.
“At your service, Mr. Underhill.” Before he could lift his hand to knock, that bright smooth panel slid back silently. Inside, the little black mechanical stood waiting, blind and forever alert. “Your dinner is ready, sir.”
Something made him shudder. In its slender naked grace, he could see the power of all those teeming hordes, benevolent and yet appalling, perfect and invincible. The flimsy little weapon that Sledge called an integrator seemed suddenly a forlorn and foolish hope. A black depression settled upon him, but he didn’t dare to show it.
*
Underhill went circumspectly down the basement steps, next morning, to steal his own tools. He found the basement enlarged and changed. The new floor, warm and dark and elastic, made his feet as silent as a humanoid’s. The new walls shone softly. Neat luminous signs identified several new doors: LAUNDRY, STORAGE, GAME ROOM, WORKSHOP.
He paused uncertainly in front of the last. The new sliding panel glowed with a soft greenish light. It was locked. The lock had no keyhole, but only a little oval plate of some white metal, which doubtless covered a rhodomagnetic relay. He pushed at it, uselessly.
“At your service, Mr. Underhill.” He made a guilty start, and tried not to show the sudden trembling in his knees. He had made sure that one humanoid would be busy for half an hour, washing Aurora’s hair, and he hadn’t known there was another in the house. It must have come out of the door marked STORAGE, for it stood there motionless beneath the sign, benevolently solicitous, beautiful and terrible. “What do you wish?”
“Er… nothing.” Its blind steel eyes were staring, and he felt that it must see his secret purpose. He groped desperately for logic. “Just looking around.” His jerky voice came hoarse and dry. “Some improvements you’ve made!” He nodded desperately at the door marked GAME ROOM. “What’s in there?”
It didn’t even have to move to work the concealed relay. The bright panel slid silently open, as he started toward it. Dark walls, beyond, burst into soft luminescence. The room was bare.
“We are manufacturing recreational equipment,” it explained brightly. “We shall furnish the room as soon as possible.”
To end an awkward pause, Underhill muttered desperately, “Little Frank has a set of darts, and I think we had some old exercising clubs.”
“We have taken them away,” the humanoid informed him softly. “Such instruments are dangerous. We shall furnish safe equipment.”
Suicide, he remembered, was also forbidden.
“A set of wooden blocks, I suppose,” he said bitterly.
“Wooden blocks are dangerously hard,” it told him gently, “and wooden splinters can be harmful. But we manufacture plastic building blocks, which are quite safe. Do you wish a set of those?”
He stared at its dark, graceful face, speechless.
“We shall also have to remove the tools from your workshop,” it informed him softly. “Such tools are excessively dangerous, but we can supply you with
equipment for shaping soft plastics.”
“Thanks,” he muttered uneasily. “No rush about that.”
He started to retreat, and the humanoid stopped him.
“Now that you have lost your business,” it urged, “we suggest that you formally accept our total service. Assignors have a preference, and we shall be able to complete your household staff, at once.”
“No rush about that, either,” he said grimly.
He escaped from the house—although he had to wait for it to open the back door for him—and climbed the stair to the garage apartment. Sledge let him in. He sank into the crippled kitchen chair, grateful for the cracked walls that didn’t shine and the door that a man could work.
“I couldn’t get the tools,” he reported despairingly, “and they are going to take them.”
By gray daylight, the old man looked bleak and pale. His raw-boned face was drawn, and the hollowed sockets deeply shadowed, as if he hadn’t slept. Underhill saw the tray of neglected food, still forgotten on the floor.
“I’ll go back with you.” The old man was worn and ill, yet his tortured eyes had a spark of undying purpose. “We must have the tools. I believe my immunity will protect us both.”
He found a battered traveling bag. Underhill went with him back down the steps, and across to the house. At the back door, he produced a tiny horseshoe of white palladium, and touched it to the metal oval. The door slid open promptly, and they went on through the kitchen to the basement stair.
A black little mechanical stood at the sink, washing dishes with never a splash or a clatter. Underhill glanced at it uneasily—he supposed this must be the one that had come upon him from the storage room, since the other should still be busy with Aurora’s hair.
Sledge’s dubious immunity seemed a very uncertain defense against its vast, remote intelligence. Underhill felt a tingling shudder. He hurried on, breathless and relieved, for it ignored them.
The basement corridor was dark. Sledge touched the tiny horseshoe to another relay to light the walls. He opened the workshop door, and lit the walls inside.
The shop had been dismantled. Benches and cabinets were demolished. The old concrete walls had been covered with some sleek, luminous stuff. For one sick moment, Underhill thought that the tools were already gone. Then he found them, piled in a corner with the archery set that Aurora had bought the summer before—another item too dangerous for fragile and suicidal humanity—all ready for disposal.
They loaded the bag with the tiny lathe, the drill and vise, and a few smaller tools. Underhill took up the burden, and Sledge extinguished the wall light and closed the door. Still the humanoid was busy at the sink, and still it didn’t seem aware of them.
Sledge was suddenly blue and wheezing, and he had to stop to cough on the outside steps, but at last they got back to the little apartment, where the invaders were forbidden to intrude. Underhill mounted the lathe on the battered library table in the tiny front room, and went to work. Slowly, day by day, the director took form.
Sometimes Underhill’s doubts came back. Sometimes, when he watched the cyanotic color of Sledge’s haggard face and the wild trembling of his twisted, shrunken hands, he was afraid the old man’s mind might be as ill as his body, and his plan to stop the dark invaders all foolish illusion.
Sometimes, when he studied that tiny machine on the kitchen table, the pivoted needle and the thick lead ball, the whole project seemed the sheerest folly. How could anything detonate the seas of a planet so far away that its very mother star was a telescopic object?
The humanoids, however, always cured his doubts.
It was always hard for Underhill to leave the shelter of the little apartment, because he didn’t feel at home in the bright new world the humanoids were building. He didn’t care for the shining splendor of his new bathroom, because he couldnt work the taps—some suicidal human being might try to drown himself. He didn’t like the windows that only a mechanical could open—a man might accidentally fall, or suicidally jump—or even the majestic music room with the wonderful glittering radio-phonograph that only a humanoid could play.
He began to share the old man’s desperate urgency, but Sledge warned him solemnly, “You mustn’t spend too much time with me. You mustn’t let them guess our work is so important. Better put on an act—you’re slowly getting to like them, and you’re just killing time, helping me.
Underhill tried, but he was not an actor. He went dutifully home for his meals. He tried painfully to invent conversation—about anything else than detonating planets. He tried to seem enthusiastic, when Aurora took him to inspect some remarkable improvement to the house. He applauded Gay’s recitals, and went with Frank for hikes in the wonderful new parks.
And he saw what the humanoids did to his family. That was enough to renew his faith in Sledge’s integrator, and redouble his determination that the humanoids must be stopped.
Aurora, in the beginning, had bubbled with praise for the marvelous new mechanicals. They did the household drudgery, brought the food and planned the meals and washed the children’s necks. They turned her out in stunning gowns, and gave her plenty of time for cards.
Now, she had too much time.
She had really liked to cook—a few special dishes, at least, that were family favorites. But stoves were hot and knives were sharp. Kitchens were altogether too dangerous for careless and suicidal human beings.
Fine needlework had been her hobby, but the humanoids took away her needles. She had enjoyed driving the car, but that was no longer allowed. She turned for escape to a shelf of novels, but the humanoids took them all away, because they dealt with unhappy people in dangerous situations.
One afternoon, Underhill found her in tears.
“It’s too much,” she gasped bitterly. “I hate and loathe every naked one of them. They seemed so wonderful at first, but now they won’t even let me eat a bite of candy. Can’t we get rid of them, dear? Ever?”
A blind little mechanical was standing at his elbow, and he had to say they couldn’t.
“Our function is to serve all men, forever,” it assured them softly. “It was necessary for us to take your sweets, Mrs. Underhill, because the slightest degree of overweight reduces life-expectancy.”
Not even the children escaped that absolute solicitude. Frank was robbed of a whole arsenal of lethal instruments—football and boxing gloves, pocketknife, tops, slingshot, and skates. He didn’t like the harmless plastic toys, which replaced them. He tried to run away, but a humanoid recognized him on the road, and brought him back to school.
Gay had always dreamed of being a great musician. The new mechanicals had replaced her human teachers, since they came. Now, one evening when Underhill asked her to play, she announced quietly, “Father, I’m not going to play the violin any more.”
“Why, darling?” He stared at her, shocked, and saw the bitter resolve on her face. “You’ve been doing so well—especially since the humanoids took over your lessons.”
“They’re the trouble, Father.” Her voice, for a child’s, sounded strangely tired and old. “They are too good. No matter how long and hard I try, I could never be as good as they are. It isn’t any use. Don’t you understand, Father?” Her voice quivered. “It just isn’t any use.”
He understood. Renewed resolution sent him back to his secret task. The humanoids had to be stopped. Slowly the director grew, until a time came finally when Sledge’s bent and unsteady fingers fitted into place the last tiny part that Underhill had made, and carefully soldered the last connection.
Huskily, the old man whispered, “It’s done.”
That was another dusk. Beyond the windows of the shabby little rooms—windows of common glass, bubble-marred and flimsy, but simple enough for a man to manage—the town of Two Rivers had assumed an alien splendor. The old street lamps were gone, but now the coming night was challenged by the walls of strange new mansions and villas, all aglow with color. A few dark and silent humanoids still were
busy on the luminous roofs of the palace across the alley.
Inside the humble walls of the small manmade apartment, the new director was mounted on the end of the little kitchen table—which Underhill had reinforced and bolted to the floor. Soldered busbars joined director and integrator, and the thin palladium needle swung obediently as Sledge tested the knobs with his battered, quivering fingers.
“Ready,” he said hoarsely.
His rusty voice seemed calm enough, at first, but his breathing was too fast. His big gnarled hands began to tremble violently, and Underhill saw the sudden blue that stained his pinched and haggard face. Seated on the high stool, he clutched desperately at the edge of the table. Underhill saw his agony, and hurried to bring his medicine. He gulped it, and his rasping breath began to slow.
“Thanks,” his whisper rasped unevenly. “I’ll be all right. I’ve time enough.” He glanced out at the few dark naked things that still flitted shadowlike about the golden towers and the glowing crimson dome of the palace across the alley. “Watch them,” he said. “Tell me when they stop.”
He waited to quiet the trembling of his hands, and then began to move the director’s knobs. The integrator’s long needle swung, as silently as light.
Human eyes were blind to that force, which might detonate a planet. Human ears were deaf to it. The cathode-ray tube was mounted in the director cabinet, to make the faraway target visible to feeble human senses.
The needle was pointing at the kitchen wall, but that would be transparent to the beam. The little machine looked harmless as a toy, and it was silent as a moving humanoid.
The needle swung, and spots of greenish light moved across the tube’s fluorescent field, representing the stars that were scanned by the timeless, searching beam—silently seeking out the world to be destroyed.
Underhill recognized familiar constellations, vastly dwarfed. They crept across the field, as the silent needle swung. When three stars formed an unequal triangle in the center of the field, the needle steadied suddenly. Sledge touched other knobs, and the green points spread apart. Between them, another fleck of green was born.
