by Earl
* * * * *
WALKER snapped off the circuit as the carrier wave broke into our rapport with the thought-images, and gave me a significant look.
I’ve tried to give, above, as complete a version of the robot’s philosophic speculations as he stood alone on Earth as possible, but there were a myriad thoughts—inarticulate ones—that were woven in this episode. Of course we ran through the various episodes several times each, but like a phonograph record, essentially the same message came through every time.
“We’re getting into deeper water right along,” said Walker hoarsely. He was excited. “As I suspected, there’s some connection with this record and pre-human history. Don’t you sense it, Cliff? I think we can prepare ourselves for some stiff shocks of one kind or another.”
“Haven’t we been shocked enough already?” I grunted. “I don’t exactly like this chap’s profound intelligence. Makes me feel small and uneducated. I feel as though I had a transparent brain, compared to his, figuratively and literally.”
“That’s the odd part of it,” mused Walker. “That he—or it—should know so much about things in general, as if he had ransacked a library. He even hinted at knowing what evolution was, at the last. Yet, as a Younger of his race, untutored except as a mechanic and worker, he could not know those things. Mm,” he went on, “just happened to think—remember that little box Zonzi gave him when marking the white cross on his front? That must be his source of knowledge!”
And a few minutes later, the fifth episode confirmed this. It began much like the preceding episode, picturing the robot standing tirelessly, with the large white cross on his torso, and giving his mental ruminations. But one noticeable difference there was—the scenic background was no longer desert but instead luxuriant jungleland, steaming in the sun. And, more startling than that, there stood before the robot a bronzed, naked human being—a man who, despite a scraggly beard and unkempt hair, was obviously homo sapiens!
* * * * *
TUMILTEN had traveled. For years he had traveled, the power valves for his metal sinews renewed by a portable machine modeled from the larger ones in cities, which made liquid fuel out of sand by the use of sun-energy. He had crossed jungle and mountain, valley and desert, and had seen everywhere prolific abundance of animal life; life that he understood to be vastly different, in a material way, from his own.
These creatures he saw before they scurried away from his awesome presence were composed of carbonaceous jelly, so soft that he could push a tentacle right through their bodies. The few times he had done this, experimentally, he had been puzzled by the outpouring of a queer, thick red fluid. His alert senses told him that this watery fluid might be, to them, as his own oily fuel was to him—the means of supplying energy to their flimsy bodies.
At first Tumilten had been impatient with these jelly creatures, in his search for intelligent life. It did not occur to him that among their kind might be what he was looking for. He had seen a tremendous variety of them, from tiny, swift balls of fur to giant, thick-hided monsters that trumpeted squealingly at his approach. None of them had indicated signs of the least rational intelligence. And Tumilten thought that his search was useless.
Only one type of creature, standing one-third his own size and walking erect on two legs, showed a rudimentary intelligence. They inhabited caves, usually in small groups, and used fire. They carried hand-made implements that showed a certain dawning ingenuity of invention. But the thoughts they radiated, which Tumilten caught and read, were simple and dull. They were not far on the road to intellect.
“There,” Tumilten told himself, “is the matrix from which organic evolution, as it obtained in that other star-system which Zonzi’s recordings of the Books tell about, might produce truly reasoning creatures. There is a close analogy between these creatures of two different worlds, except that those who were the creatures of my race were composed of siliceous compounds instead of carbonaceous.
“The question is, when will evolution here on this planet produce a mutation with true intelligence? Perhaps not for ages yet.”
But one day Tumilten had seen one of the erect, two-legged creatures with a curious aura of deliberateness in his manner. And this being, contrary to all other jelly creatures, had not fled, but had stared at him curiously. When Tumilten had taken a step forward, this being had warily, not precipitately, backed to a large stone, still staring. Once it had lifted a sharp stick, and balanced it for a moment in its hand.
All the while it showed more curiosity than fear, emotions that Tumilten had come to recognize, but not analyze.
Intrigued by this strange being, Tumilten had approached very close and read its thoughts. And thereupon Tumilten knew he was facing a mind having at least the capacity of his own, even if of an entirely alien construction.
So it was that Tumilten stood before a man, and knew that his search—that search that had really begun in his mind a half-million years before while he had been among his own race—had ended. Here was life, biologically endless, thoroughly adapted to a changeable and changing environment, with an intellectual capacity beyond plumbing. This was the race that would rise above the material, would develop philosophy, science and thought beyond the limits of its humble birth. It had spawned in the jungle—it would reach to the stars.
Tumilten concentrated his thought, radiated it to the man-being in simple nuances of expression—“Man, are you afraid of Tumilten?”
“Not afraid, but amazed,” came back in thought articulation. “I have never seen your like before.”
“Tumilten is not a creature like you,” returned the robot. “He is of another world—another sphere of the universe.”
“You are from the stars?” The Man pointed upward—“From there? But who are you?”
“The number is meaningless, but he is Tumilten. He is of that kind of life which came before you. His race is that which could only exist properly before this time in the universe. Your race will inherit the planets his race has ravished of radium.”
The Man’s mind was befogged at these things. He touched his spear-head, which was of metal. “You are made of this.
Are you indestructible, and how long have you lived?”
“Tumilten has lived for thousands of years, and is indestructible to the extent that nothing living can harm him.”
What was that curious emotion that came up in the man-creature then? That queer awe and reverence?
“Then you are a—a god!” said the Man.
“God? God? Oh, that is perhaps your thought for robot. Well, if Tumilten is what you call a god, he is the only one, as all the others have left this earth.”
“You are The God, then!” said the Man, again with awe. “What is that large white cross on your front—what does that mean?”
Tumilten answered, amazed at the man-creature’s insatiable curiosity, and at the same time pleased, for curiosity denoted intelligence. “This cross was emblazoned on Tumilten’s frontlet to indicate that he must be destroyed when the Chosen left this world. But, as you see, Tumilten was not destroyed.”
“That cross meant you should be—killed?” returned the Man, puzzled. “Yet you are here. You were not killed!”
“Tumilten was not destroyed.”
“You are Tumilten, though!”
“Yes, Tumilten is—Tumilten.”
THE man-creature frowned. These things were not quite clear to him. At times he looked at the robot with awed eyes. An odd series of thoughts ran through his mind, jumbling up the conceptions of the white cross, god, Tumilten is Tumilten, indestructibility and longevity of the robot.
Tumilten spoke again—“Man, do you know that you are at the beginning of a great race? Since you are the first Tumilten has found in many years of wandering, you shall be called the One-Man.
Your mate will be called the One-Woman.”
“But I have no mate!” returned the Man, shaking his head dejectedly. “I cannot mate with those shaggy women in the caves—even
though my mother was one of them.”
“I know you have not found a mate,” said Tumilten. “You are a biological sport, a mutation, one that would ordinarily die out unless a similar sport of the other sex is found for you. There must be dozens, perhaps hundreds, of your type on earth, and must have been for years, but the chances of mutations meeting are so small that it might not occur the first time for thousands of years yet. Therefore, Tumilten will search out a mate for you, though it takes years.”
“You will find me a mate? A woman as straight of body as I, as hairless, as round of skull?” queried the Man.
“Yes, one who will reproduce with you and give rise to the race that will one day surpass Tumilten and his race tenfold.”
The man-creature stared in amazement. “Tumilten is a god!” he cried.
Tumilten, though puzzled, did not try to clear up the mix-up at that time. Later, he was to find it a point on which he and the man, and his mate, could not agree. Nor with the later man-creatures he was to find, and the mates he found for them, could he establish a rational basis of understanding as to who and what he was.
There was a peculiar twist in the man-mind that made it idealize more than rationalize. Later progress would either eliminate this quality, or make of it something beyond the scope of a robot mind. One question was ever to recur to Tumilten, yet never quite answer itself—“What is that thought-word ‘god’ ?”
WE—Walker and I—started as though awakening from a dream when the thought-record clicked off there.
The above account dissatisfies me. In a way, it records the message that radiated to our brains from the metal ball. But it fails miserably to carry the full import. It is sketchy, even a little ridiculous. I’ve tried to rewrite it, but each version is as incomplete, as imperfect of the real thing, as this one. So this one will have to stand.
Walker cleared his throat, after snapping off the current.
“That,” he jerked out, “is what they call a revelation!”
As for me, I was all in pieces. I was actually panting.
“I—I can’t believe it!” I stammered. “It’s preposterous! A trick of some kind. Are we supposed to have witnessed a sort of rehearsed play enacted 25,000 years ago? The origin of human life? Adam and Eve, so to speak?”
“Why not?” My friend’s eyes were shining. “We have witnessed the original of the first of all fables—that of Man’s creation. We saw not Adam and Eve, but the One-Man and the One-Woman, whereas Adam and Eve may have been a later couple brought together by Tumilten. It’s the new Genesis, or rather, the old explained. The Biblical Adam-and-Eve story is history, not religion, remember that. Anyway, the first-man and first-woman story is not solely a Biblical story at all. Think of the fable of Prometheus and Pandora in Greek mythology. Then in the Vedas of India, Brahma and his four sons, who were given wives from Heaven. In Northern mythology, there are Aske and Embla, the progenitors of the human race. They all bear the curious relationship that the man in each case was given a wife, respectively by Jehovah, Jupiter, Brahma, and Odin. A story that is so universal and has so many points in common makes it a historical fact. What we have heard and seen here gives the true picture of these many versions.”
“Huh,” I grunted. “This version is more fantastic than all the others put together. Tell me this, why that ambiguous phrase ‘Tumilten is Tumilten’ ?”
I thought I had him there. I wanted to trip him up on little details and make him admit the whole thing was crazy. But he answered quick as a flash:
“Because the robot Tumilten had no conception of the pronoun T. Think once—all through the records it did not once refer to itself except by name or in the third person. To himself, he was not himself, but simply Tumilten!”
Walker reflected a moment. “That brings up the curious thought that the conception of T—my existence of myself separate from the universe at large—is a purely human invention. The robot people did not recognize a fundamental individuality. Perhaps each thought of himself as abstractly as you think of your pared finger-nail.”
I am giving you everything Walker said not as gospel truth, but just as his way of explaining things. I don’t agree with him at all. How do I explain it all? I don’t—can’t. I firmly believe there is no explanation—not any reasonable one.
“I can’t follow that fancy metaphysics,” I growled. “But let me tell you something—there’s one thing very odd about that whole series of records. Tumilten—or whoever really made it—was holding back a lot. He seemed to be telling just certain things, as if to get our reactions for his own benefit. But of course the record was made plenty long ago, so—look out!”
Walker, in the act of lighting a cigarette, had let the match bum to his finger-tips. He flung it down slowly, and damped the unlighted cigarette carefully as though it had been burning. His face was deeply thought-creased.
“Cliff——”
“No, I’m going. I can see you have a spell of fantastic theories coming on. Besides, I have to sleep this off—worse than drugs——”
Still mumbling, I left, leaving Walker in a trance.
“I STILL don’t believe it!” were my A words of greeting the next evening.
Walker raised a face that showed by its haggardness that he had been up all the past twenty-four hours. “Cliff,” he said, “I got a letter from Micolet, the paleontologist who found the metal ball. They have finally determined the age of the clay-matrix in which the thing was found. The fossils cannot be less than 25,000 years old!”
“I don’t believe that either!” I said stubbornly. I was in a completely disbelieving mood.
Walker held up a flask in which two gold leaves hung suspended from a conductor rod running through a rubber cork. “This is an electroscope,” he explained. “It indicates the electrical charge of any object, or of the air surrounding the conductor rod. When I hold it near that metal ball from which we got our records, the leaves fly apart!”
“Huh,” I said. “The metal ball is charged.”
“No, the air around it is, because there’s radium inside!”
“And——?”
“Don’t you see, Cliff?” cried Walker, jumping to his feet. “It means that metal ball is not just any mechanism, but is the very mechanism that the robot people called a brain-unit!”
I gulped. “That is—Tumilten’s own brain?”
Walker nodded excitedly. “You gave me the hint last night, saying the records seemed to be created on the spot, for us. Stupidly, I puzzled over that for hours before thinking of a way to prove it, simply with an electroscope to detect the radium.”
“But the radium must have been burned out in 25,000 years!”
“You forget that only half of any given amount of radium burns out every 1,700 years. Most of it is gone, but about 1/30 of it is still active, enough to keep that mechanical brain at least partially alive!”
“Good God! Alive?”
“Yes, the body had long rusted away, as have all the cities of the robot people in the past 25,000 years, so that nothing remains of them but that one metal ball, made of an incredibly resistant alloy.”
“Good God! Alive!” I gasped again. I picked up the metal ball gingerly, lying on the work-bench, and looked at it wide-eyed. A brain—a mechanical brain 25,000 years old—and alive!”
“Bill!” I faced about suddenly. “Bill, if we found a way to open it and put in more radium—wouldn’t it really come to life?”
“It would, except for one thing,” said Walker. “It died this morning!”
“Died!”
“Yes. Whether the waning emanations finally ceased to nourish it, or the effects of the high-frequency field gradually disrupted it, or whether, somehow, it wanted to die, I don’t know. But it is completely dead to the Tesla field. We might have heard much more—there must be far more that it had to tell, this ancient brain of metal—but it will remain a secret for ever!”
Curiously enough, my thought at the moment was, “And better so!�
�
Walker’s epitaphal comment was appropriate: “He told us the first story ever to be told among the human race, in a different way.”
Yes, and from the beginning!
THE SPACE PIRATE
Major Wright of the Ether Patrol is captured in space by the wily pirate Barly Moque. Imprisoned within the bowels of the moon, Wright schemes an escape so he can challenge his captors to a finish battle.
CHAPTER I
“HALF a day,” said Captain Gilbert, “and then we’ll lower onto good old Earth. I suppose, Major Wright, you’re sorry your vacation is over?”
“Not exactly,” returned Wright. “Loafing is all right for a month or so, but now I’m ready to get back into service—eager to get back, in fact.”
The captain smiled. “Ah, you men of the Ether Patrol have the fire of adventure in your hearts! You have the courage of a lion and the daring of a pirate, and your favorite game is a gamble with death!”
Wright chuckled and flung up a hand. “A bit melodramatic, Captain, but thanks anyway.”
The two men were talking in Captain Gilbert’s private office on the giant airliner President Roosevelt, heading earthward from Mars at the end of a delightful 30-Day Universal Vacation Tour.
Major Cedric Wright of the Ether Patrol was not quite thirty. He was tall and straight of physique, with whipcord muscles and hardened flesh. His reflexes were lightning fast. Twelve years of service in the organization that extended law and order into space between the planets had ingrained him with quick-thinking and alertness.
There was something of the bleakness of the void in his eyes, something of its calm patience in his strong face. He had the mark of space, which is motionless.
