The Robot Aliens

by Eando Binder

  Miller mused awhile, then suddenly threw the clippings down on the desk and rang for the butler.

  “Jussy, have Jamie saddle up Old Baldy. I’m going for a jaunt till dinner time. When I’m gone, you can take away your clippings.”

  It was Miller’s habit to put from his mind all mundane thoughts while out riding, and to enjoy the quiet woodland scenes. He put Old Baldy to a trot at first till they were well away from Owensboro, then let him walk along at his ease. Tall oaks and majestic maples cast a soft shade over him. Song birds twittered and occasionally sang sweetly. The peace and joy of a quiet June day hung all about him like a subtle perfume.

  • Frank Miller, of a long line of tobacco kings, was unmarried at the age of thirty. His wealth could have bought him social prestige in any large city, but like his ancestors before him, he preferred an unostentatious life in practical obscurity. Owensboro was the seat of the ancestral mansion, founded by his great-grandfather. The Miller tobacco plantation was farther south. Intelligent and well educated, the last of the Millers found his greatest enjoyment in reading, with hunting and fishing for diversions.

  At first aimless in destination, Miller suddenly decided to visit his private hunting cabin secreted in a large hardwood forest to the west. Many a week he had spent there in autumn during the hunting season. The footpath in one place bisected the road between Henderson and Owensboro. He had to bend low at places where low-hung branches waved at face level. At the road crossing he straightened up, then reined in his horse sharply. A block down the road was a tall metal creation rapidly approaching him.

  “Lord!” breathed Miller at his first sight of a Robot Alien in life.

  His first reaction was a slight panic. Then he remembered the cynic’s words, saying that the metal monsters had never displayed a weapon nor an inclination to wreak harm. In other words, it was only blind human fear that had made the metal beings so formidable. Miller squared his shoulders and waited for the queer thing to come up. He was determined to see it as close as possible; it would be an experience to be proud of for the rest of his life.

  The Metal Monster was coming along at an easy jog and the watcher marveled that it moved so quietly, without the clanking noise of worldly machinery. Its eight arm appendages were folded against its body, but Miller could see its several eyes clicking and shuttering as it turned its “head” slightly from side to side, showing that it was not oblivious to its surroundings.

  The human watcher found himself wondering what marvelous machinery ran that giant metal frame, what powerful and efficient engines gave it motive power. He wondered too how much of intelligence reposed behind that immobile metallic shell and whether it was organic intelligence or mineral, as Professor Honstein maintained. His whirling thoughts even asked: “And for what purpose is it wandering over the face of Earth?” Miller felt that it would be a great thrill to know all the answers.

  As the mechanical being lumbered up, grotesque and awesomely large, an eye fastened on the lone human. It seemed to drink in the picture of Miller sitting erect and undisturbed on his horse, returning stare for stare. Then it stopped!

  Miller paled a bit at the sight of the inhuman thing standing still and facing him from not twenty feet away. Then he saw a jointed arm stretch jerkily toward him; long metal fingers clenched and unclenched. But Miller was more puzzled than alarmed, for the creature had not stepped closer.

  His horse, well used to seeing all sorts of vehicles, stood motionless and Miller himself sat like a statue, wondering what would come of this impossible dream where a twelve-foot animated clockwork waved arms at him.

  The creature next uncurled a tentacular arm and made four imaginary circles with it, pausing after each one, and then tapped its breast.

  “God!” breathed the man. “It’s—it’s trying to talk to me!”

  Miller was a man of quick decisions. “It” wanted to talk to him. “It” was seemingly friendly. And Miller found himself wanting to talk to “it” ! It occurred to him at the same moment that if they stayed in the open long, someone else would spy the monster and would spread an alarm. Miller didn’t want that. He wanted to have the creature to himself for at least a few hours, to find out whether communication between them were possible. His hunting cabin sprang immediately into his mind as the ideal spot for secrecy.

  Miller made a simple pantomime. He pointed to himself, then to the creature, then down the path. The metal being repeated the gesture with an arm, as if in agreement.

  Thereupon the man spurred his horse forward, crossed the road, and looked back. With ponderous steps, the ‘metal monster’ was following!

  Probably none of the succeeding events thrilled the young tobacco king as much as that realization that he had made a contact, however slight, with the metal monster which all the rest of the world feared and cursed.

  The hunting cabin was five miles away. While Miller rode his horse at a trot and turned back each minute to see the incredible miracle following him like a dog, he began to wonder what he would do next. The creature had no mouth and therefore no voice. It had ears to hear, but no tongue to speak. Then another thought struck him: it had eyes to see and fingers to write! If it had a reasonable intelligence, he ought to be able to show it the connection between written words and their meanings. But that would take days—and days—and days—

  Miller jumped from his horse when they came to his cabin, took a swift glance inside, and then returned to the metal monster which stood motionless near the door. He looked at it reflectively for a moment Would it prove to be of low intellect, like a jungle beast?—or of an order of intelligence approaching the human?

  Miller pulled a card from his pocket and wrote with his fountain pen a short message to Jussy. “I am staying at the cabin overnight. You come here this evening with some plain food. And whatever you hear or see, Jussy, come up to the cabin.”

  He pinned the card to the saddle horn, headed Old Baldy down the trail a ways and gave him a slap on his haunches. With a startled whinny, the horse galloped out of sight.

  • Emotionless, lack-luster, mechanical eyes followed the man as he stepped again into the cabin, to come out this time with several sheets of yellowed wrapping paper and a flat board. Miller printed the “I brought ya sump’n to eat, like ya word man in large capitals with his fountain pen and showed it to the creature, pointing to himself. Then he wrote the word tree and pointed to a near-by oak. Then he wrote eye and pointed both to his own and the creature’s eyes.

  This done, he drew a long breath and held the paper toward the metal being, wondering if it would understand. He watched in fascination as a double-elbowed arm unbent, raising a hand with one outstretched finger. Unerringly, the finger pointed to man, tree, and eye and their corresponding words.

  “Lord!” muttered the human. “It—it understands!”

  He then made a list of ten more simple nouns: grass, leaf, bark, house, pen, cap, leg, arm, dirt, and ear. He went through the list once, and to his astonishment, the creature duplicated his designations without the least hesitation. It not only had human-like intelligence, but it seemed to have a phenomenal memory to remember words it had never seen before in relation to their counterparts.

  Miller next tried less concrete ideas: jumping, running, waving, air, sky, light and shade, etc. Sometimes he had to repeat his pantomime once or twice, but, invariably, the metal being caught on and repeated them and pointed to the correct word. At the word air, Miller swung an arm about, drew in his breath sharply, expanding his chest and pointing to it, and again pointed all around. The metal being was puzzled and made no move. Again, Miller went through the motions and added another, waving his sheet of paper so that a breath of air blew a tiny heap of sand from his palm. Then the Robot Alien showed understanding by poising a leaf on a tuft of grass and sweeping his broad foot past it so the air currents blew it off.

  This miraculous display of keen intellect convinced Miller that he was dealing with a mind at least equal to his own. Af
ter trying a few dozen more words, Miller heard the sound of hoof-beats. Jussy came up on Old Baldy.

  “I brought ya sump’n to eat, like ya said, suh,” began Jussy, holding out a paper package. “But w’at does y’all mean by—”

  His eyes at that moment encountered the Robot Alien who had been partly in shadow and practically invisible from the trail. Jussy’s black skin grew three shades lighter and his eyes popped in terror.

  With a shriek, he reined Old Baldy about and attempted to leave, but his master had a firm grip on the bridle.

  “Lemme go!” wailed Jussy. “Ah jus’ seen de Debil—jump on, massah an’ let us go w’ile de goin’ is good!”

  “Listen to me, you fool!” said Miller, hardly knowing whether to laugh or be angry. “Jussy, look up!”

  “Yassuh!” said the darky, uncovering his face and looking at his master.

  “Jussy, I’ve always been good to you, haven’t I? And my father was good to you, too, while he lived, wasn’t he?” “Yassah, dat’s so!” said the darky, glancing fearfully back and wondering which of them had gone crazy.

  “And you’ll trust me that I wouldn’t ever bring you to harm,” continued Miller soothingly.

  “I believes in ya, suh.”

  “Then come down off that horse and quit your trembling. That creature is not the devil and it won’t hurt you any more than it did me in the past two hours.”

  Be it said here and now that Abriel Jussy, though little known to the world and far less honored than such men as Chief of Police Saunders of Joliet, Captain Pompersnap and Major Whinny of Fort Sheridan, and Colonel Snoosharp of the Secret Service, had yet more courage in his simple heart than any of them. Once his master had vouched for his safety, and once he had seen that the fearsome metal creation was as gentle as a kitten, he dropped his instinctive fears and looked at it in curiosity.

  “Come along,” said Miller who knew human nature and knew that Jussy would bear up like a man. “Let me show you my pet and what I taught him already.”

  In Miller’s mind, the metal being had changed from an “it” to a “him,” on partaking of semi-human attributes. He held up the paper so that the mechanical eyes could see and pointed to man, whereupon a tentacular arm swung first to the master, then to the butler.

  “See?” said Miller with pride in his voice. “He understands.”

  “Lawd help me,” commented Jussy. “Der rims’ be a man inside o’ it.”

  “I don’t think so., Jussy, not a man! But I do think there’s a brain, or a creature with a brain, in it, all right. And believe me, Jussy, that brain is a mighty intelligent one.”

  “Yassah. But what y’all plans to do, suh, wit’ dat t’ing, now ya got it heah?”

  “Jussy,” began Miller, “I’m going to teach that creature the English language by means of words in print. I don’t care if it takes a month or a year. I’m going to live right here at the cabin and you and Jamie will bring me food. You circulate the news at home that I’ve gone to Europe or China or somewhere and won’t be back for an indefinite period. You and Jamie are going to bring me books, too, lots of them with pictures—and paper—and pencils—and a special oversized, metal pencil for that metal man so that he can write and tell me what he knows, after he learns enough to write.

  “Jussy, old boy, we’re going to surprise the whole world!”

  CHAPTER VI

  Proxies from Mars

  • An abridged version of Frank Miller’s famous work “The Robot Aliens” follows.

  “It is sad, indeed, that the authorities misconstrued the events immediately following the landing of the mystery ship in northern Illinois, and saw fit to declare a state of war on what were known as the ‘Metal Monsters.’ For the following paragraphs will demonstrate that the ‘Metal Monsters’ were not ferocious enemies of mankind but simply proxy ambassadors from the civilisation of the planet Mars, simply ingenious robots that took the place of flesh-and-blood Martians in the long and trying trip through space.

  “On June 15th of this year of grace, 1942, I met the sole surviving Robot Alien on a deserted road between Henderson and Owensboro, Kentucky. Whatever upheld my courage, I do not know, except that it was, perhaps, an intuition or hunch that the fearsome creature I saw approaching was fearsome in appearance only, but nevertheless, I held my ground and watched it. From that started our contact, for I thereupon led it to my private cabin in the woods and started the task of communicating with it. The Robot Alien confided in me recently that it had more than once tried to get into close contact with earthly beings but none had had the courage to stop and face him! Incredible fact!

  “In two months I had taught the Robot Alien enough so that we could exchange information of a simpler sort. It seems strange that I should speak of the Robot Alien as of a living being, when actually it is a machine, but since I do not know the name of the Martian he represents, (we used the symbol X between us) and since the Robot Alien itself is more real to me than its controlling power millions of miles across space, it is easier to speak of the robot as the actual being.

  “Briefly, X on Mars and his two companions (Y and Z) constructed, after a lifetime of work, the three robots which we saw here on earth. These three ingenious mechanisms were encased in a welded ellipsoid, along with numerous instruments, and shot to earth under rocket power. From what I have been able to learn, the task of sending living beings through interplanetary space has baffled and foiled Martian science for countless ages—there are a number of special conditions that cannot be overcome, such as cosmic rays and the terrific cold. So they did the next best thing and sent proxy robots. Even at that, it was a difficult task—the ship had to be automatic, in operation and it had to be guided from an ever-increasing distance. But all other troubles had been avoided; there was no air to worry about, the cosmic rays had no effect on metal, the time of travel meant nothing, for the robots required no food or water, and the landing, which would have been disastrous to protoplasm, hardly affected the sturdy robots at all.

  “The ship took four months to cross the void. Every last bit of rocket fuel was used up in the landing, but yet it was not enough to prevent a terrific crash. Only the incredibly tough hull saved the contents from being ground up into metal hash. As it was, one of the robots and several of the instruments were damaged in the meteoric landing.

  “Now a word is necessary on the robots themselves. What they are run by, or what ingenious mechanical principles they operate upon, I do not know—our present interchange of words includes nothing of such involved things; but I am confident that years of effort on the part of scientists and engineers will finally bring all that out.

  “But for my part of the affair, I only know that the contact between X and Y and Z and their respective robots was unbelievably intimate. The Robot Alien (or rather X, by means of the Robot Alien existing on earth today) assures me that he hears and sees and moves as surely and accurately as though he were a human being walking around on earth! To X, the Martian, he is almost as fully living on earth as though he were here instead of encased in some sort of complicated control chamber on Mars!

  “Thus it will be understood that when the Robot Aliens stepped from their ship and first cast eyes on Earth, it was with the same thrill that an Earth-man would get stepping from a ship and gazing at Martian topography! To all intents and purposes, X, Y, and Z might just as well have been on Earth, except that the sense of feeling, smell, and taste were absent.

  “It was Z’s robot that was injured in the crash, its legs being mangled beyond use. Accordingly, the other two carried Z’s robot out of the ship so that it could help with the instruments. These instruments are, for the most part, incomprehensible to me and X did not try to explain them. However, I know that, with them, they tested such things as gravity-pull, air-density, air-composition, and the sunlight intensity, all for their Martian scientific records.

  “The Robot Alien managed to convey to me that they were astonished beyond all measure at the fear
the earth-people showed from the first. It may interest humanity that X (and therefore all Martians) considers that human reaction a trait of low intelligence, and poor reasoning powers that are completely dominated by an instinctive emotion that surprises them, My own interference from this is that Martian civilization, vastly older and more advanced than ours, has uprooted and cast out that atavistic emotion known as ‘fear’.

  “At the precipitate panic and flight of over a hundred persons on the first morning (when all X wanted was to get into communication with them) the Martians were puzzled. However, they bent to their work and completed most of it by the next day. Then when an armed party of humans approached, they were overjoyed that at last they would establish contact with Earth-people. Imagine X’s astonishment, when, after advancing a step to meet them, they fled in fright and shot their rifles at him! X was mystified and ran after them (which action we know caused the absolute rout of five hundred troopers and ten thousand civilians). At the top of the knoll, he saw with his mechanical proxy eyes the fleeing masses. I can picture in my mind how X and Y and Z, turned away from their controls for a moment back on Mars and talked over in bewilderment that strange action on the part of the humans!

  “When the bombardment started, X and Y tried to drag Z inside the ship, but the imminence of destruction to the three of them caused them to save two of the robots at the expense of one. It was quite by accident that they entered Chicago, but curiosity led them onward as far as the Loop, where frantic motorists killed one another in their childish frenzy to save each his own paltry neck from an imagined fear. They then abruptly left Chicago, which X tells me is a pitifully tiny city compared to those of Mars, and decided to see as much of earth as possible.

  “The determined air attack decided them to separate for a better chance to survive the fury of the queer earth beings whose intellect was so low that they could think only of battle when they saw something beyond their ken. Y got his robot as far as the Pennsylvania borderline before a certain clever general ambushed it and blew it to a million worthless pieces, little realizing that he had in one mad moment destroyed a lifetime of work by a being ten times more intelligent and worthy than himself.