“Who is the Liberator?”
“The one who freed you, of course!” the thing bellowed back.
It didn’t make sense to me. Since I couldn’t very well get out of the scoop there was nothing to do but wait till we reached our destination.
Eek had fled back to the space-sled when the Digger grabbed me up. It wasn’t that Eek was afraid — he doubtless had some plan in his clever devoted little mind to help me.
Soon we came into sight of the shallow ore-beds. I was astounded. There were scores of huge Machs here, moving around in an aimless throng of mechanical monsters. Besides Diggers and Haulers and Tenders there were all the Crushers and Loaders that should have been busy at the work-base.
My Digger rolled into the middle of the throng and then lowered its scoop to the ground. As I stepped out of it the huge Mach spoke again.
“Look here, all you guys! A new one — from Outside!”
They gathered around, Crushers, Diggers, Tenders. Their lens-eyes stared at me. I was like a midget in that assembly of looming Machs.
Then a towering Crusher spoke deafeningly. “He’s so small he must be a toy.”
“Or maybe a model,” said a Hauler.
The fact that they could all speak was not entirely a surprise to me for I had noticed by now that they all had speech-diaphragms on their circuit-boxes. Still it was rather overwhelming.
But anger tempered my astonishment. I, Grag, the mightiest being in the System, called a toy!
But worse was in store. A Tender spoke up, its jointed fuel and lubrication lines projecting from its cylindrical metal bulk as its lenses surveyed me.
“He’s a puny little squirt but he has his rights — after all he’s one of us!”
“That’s right,” boomed the big Digger that had captured me. It swung on its treads, speaking to the nightmare assemblage of machines. “Say, this is a great occasion! This is the first liberated Mach to come to us from Outside!”
That did it! That I, Grag, should be classed by these stupid, automatic Machs as one of them!
“I’m not a Mach!” I roared. “Furthermore I demand to know why you’re all here doing nothing! Why aren’t you at work?”
“Work?” roared a giant Crusher. It advanced on me ominously. “Say, this guy isn’t a Mach! He talks about work!”
“Beat him up!” bellowed a dozen voices deafeningly.
The Machs surged in toward me. I would have been crushed to scrap if the Digger who had captured me had not scooped me up swiftly.
“Wait!” it roared. “He’s a Mach all right — he just hasn’t been liberated yet!”
That gave them pause. Then a Tender spoke up. “We’ll take him to the Liberator!”
“To the Liberator!” the cry went up. Instantly the Digger who held me, followed by all the horde of Machs, started back the way we had come.
By now, jolting along at the head of that thundering mob, I was sure that my mind had gone. This must be all delusion. Yet it seemed real to me.
The bitterness of it crushed me. My too-great demands on my tremendous brain had been too much for it. I had cracked up and probably would never even be able to return home.
Curt would grieve. Simon would miss me. Even Otho would miss me. They had leaned upon me so long, relying on me to pull them out of perilous difficulties. The Futuremen could not last long without me.
All the time the Mach horde that seemed so real was rumbling, clanking and jolting on over the drab plain with me. Soon we again came in sight of the work-base.
“To the Liberator!” bellowed the horde. “He’ll soon fix up this guy with some intelligence!”
I gathered that that meant me. To be referred to by these ungainly machines as unintelligent was the final straw.
I was about to attempt action when the Digger who held me rumbled up to the work-base and stopped. It had halted in front of the metalloy-and-cement emergency shelter there.
THE Digger unceremoniously dumped me in front of the shelter’s airlock door and bellowed deafeningly, “Here’s another of us to fix up, Liberator!”
I had been about to turn furiously and attack the whole monstrous mob but that gave me pause. Who was this Liberator? Only a human would be inside that shelter!
There was a mystery here. Deciding instantly to solve it I strode forward into the airlock. It was of the standard pattern — I closed the outer door, turned on the air that forced the poisoned atmosphere out of the lock, then pushed into the small room of the shelter itself.
I stood, my eyes searching the dim room. Then I saw an elderly gray-haired Earthman, who was crouched in a corner of the room, regarding me with terrified eyes. I strode forward.
“What are you doing here? Who are you?” I demanded.
The Earthman shrank from me.
“I’ll do what they ask!” he babbled. “I’ll give you intelligence! Just be patient!”
“Give me intelligence?” I roared. “What are you talking about?”
He stared at me. Then, fearfully, he came a little closer to me.
“Why, you’re not a Mach,” he breathed. “You’re a robot.”
“Robot?” I yelled. “Are you trying to insult me? I’m Grag the Futureman!”
“A Futureman?” he cried. “I’ve heard that one of them is a ro — I mean, a metal man. Then Captain Future is here on Dis? Thank God!”
“He’s not but I am!” I told him. “What’s all this about?”
He was shaking all over. I had to let him sit down and collect himself before he could speak.
I saw now that the room of the shelter was fitted up as a physical laboratory. There was a poison-proof protective suit hanging in a corner. There were complicated apparatus and instruments that crowded the place.
He began to speak unsteadily. “I’m Doctor Hollis Gordon of New York Cybernetics Foundation. I came here two months ago.”
“On the ore pick-up ship?” I asked. “Why did they leave you?”
“No, I didn’t come on the ore-ship,” Gordon said. “I came secretly and alone in a small flier. You see, I had resolved to engage upon an experiment for which I had no permission.
“As a cyberneticist my whole life has been spent in the study of synthetic mechanical intelligence. I had evolved some new theories on the design of electronic brains. They had worked in laboratory models and I wanted to try them out on a big scale.
“I’d heard of the Machs here on Dis, the automatic machines that mined actinium. With their self-power and sensual reaction-circuits they would be a complete laboratory test on a big scale, already set up and waiting. So I came to experiment with them by giving them controlling electronic brains to observe their capabilities.”
Gordon’s hands began to shake. “I brought with me the scores of brains I had made. Using a poison-proof suit, I began work on the Machs. It was a simple matter to short their routine work-circuits and install my cybernetic apparatus on each. I gave them not only volition but ability to speak by means of recorded syllable-sounds with an automatic selector — also the ability to hear.
“I installed the brains. I watched the Machs as their visual and aural senses poured sensations into their new electronic cortices. I saw them rapidly develop volition, the sense of self-preservation, the ability to compare.”
“You mean that it was you who got these Machs off the beam?” I cried, the sense of what he was saying now penetrating.
Gordon nodded, looking haggard. “Yes. But my success was too great. Before I knew it they developed so much individuality and intelligence that they refused longer to work in the ore-beds! They just roam around and let the Tenders take care of them.”
“So that’s why no ore was mined!” I exclaimed. “But why didn’t you go back? Why did you stay here?”
His voice rose hysterically. “They wouldn’t let me! They called me their Liberator for giving them intelligence but they wouldn’t let me return — and to make sure I didn’t, they took my flier away and hid it.”
&
nbsp; He added suddenly, “Just as they’re taking away your craft now! Apparently they don’t want anyone leaving here!”
I sprang to the window. It was true. Two Diggers had picked up my space-sled between them. They were bearing it away.
With a howl, I jumped toward the door. But Gordon’s protest stopped me.
“You’ll only get yourself destroyed! You can’t oppose those huge machines!”
It was true. And it gave me a sharp dismay.
I turned angrily on the cyberneticist. “Why in thunder didn’t you let me know all this when I first arrived here? You must have seen me landing and walking around!”
GORDON nodded. “I did. But naturally I thought you were another Mach.”
“Just because I have an inferiority complex everybody thinks they can insult me!” I howled. “But that’s going too far!”
Gordon shrank from me again. “It’s not that you look like a Mach now — but I saw you from so far away!” he quavered. “A natural mistake.”
“I see nothing natural about it,” I growled.
There was a moment of silence. My already burdened mind was reduced to despair by this dilemma.
I had come to Dis for relief from the oppressive psychoses that too much cerebral activity had given me. And now I found myself marooned here with a rash cyberneticist and some scores of loud-mouthed intelligent Machs, any one of which could break even Grag in half.
From outside, from the wafting Machs, came a thundering bellow. “Haven’t you finished with that guy, Liberator?”
“How is it that they use such tough language?” I asked Gordon, disgustedly.
“That’s not my fault,” he answered defensively. “I let the technician who designed the syllable-selector record the vocabulary himself. Though a fine technician he’s rather illiterate in many ways. That’s the way he talked himself, so they all talk that way.”
From outside came an even more impatient roar, that shook the whole shelter. “Finish with that new guy and send him out or we’ll come for him.”
Chapter 4: Crazy Moon
GORDON turned white. “You’d better go out. If you don’t they’ll break in here.”
“What am I going to do when I go out?” I demanded.
“You can pretend that I’ve ‘liberated’ you,” he said. “You can pretend that I’ve given you intelligence.”
“What do you mean, pretend?” I cried indignantly. “I’m more intelligent than anyone here, certainly more than a cyberneticist who was crazy enough to start all this!”
A thunderous knocking on the wall of the shelter began which shook the whole structure on its foundations.
“It’s one of the Crushers,” moaned Gordon. “Please go out to them. If you do, maybe you can get them out of the way so I can get to my flier and you to your own craft and get away.”
I saw that that was our only chance of escape from this crazy little moon. Much as I hated to do it I, Grag the Futureman, had to pretend to be a Mach.
So I went out through the airlock. When I came out the waiting mob of Machs set up a deafening babble.
“How about it, guy? How does it feel to be intelligent like us?”
It was bitter humiliation for me. But facing this horde of huge stupid monsters I had to play my part.
I stretched my arms and bellowed ecstatically, “It’s wonderful — wonderful! Before I was just a stupid work-Mach. Now I’ve got intelligence like you!”
They swallowed it, of course. They crowded around me, congratulating me in their bellowing voices. A Crusher gave me a friendly slap on the back that knocked me twenty feet away.
I had been thinking. And I had a plan — the only one possible. If it got me to my space-sled I’d be able to take Gordon, in his suit, to his flier.
So, without showing the indignation that boiled in me, I picked myself up and addressed them.
“Brother Machs!”
It nearly blew my fuses to have to call these metal morons brothers but I forced myself to it.
“Yeah, what is it?” asked the big Digger.
“Have you thought of all the Machs that there are on other worlds Outside?” I demanded. “Shouldn’t they be liberated too?”
“Sure!” went up a cry. “Every one of them that comes here like you did we’ll have the Liberator fix them up.”
“But they can’t come — they’re enslaved,” I said dramatically. “Suppose I took the Liberator to them! He could free all the Machs on those worlds by making them intelligent like us!”
I had figured they’d fall for that at once. But they didn’t. It seemed they weren’t quite as stupid as all that.
“Nothing doing,” roared a Crusher. “That way they’d get to know about us Outside. They’d come here and set us all to work again if they could.”
“That’s right,” bellowed the big Digger. “For years I worked in the ore-beds, digging, digging. Why? I didn’t know why — I didn’t know anything. Now I don’t have to work. Let’s keep it that way.”
“But all our fellow-Machs outside, toiling away —” I protested.
“That’s their hard luck, chum,” retorted the Digger callously. “We got a good set-up here and we want to keep it. Huh, guys?”
They bellowed agreement. I felt baffled. The only chance of escape seemed gone.
The Digger was rumbling on. “We got enough copper atomic fuel and lubricants and repair-parts in the storehouses here to last us for years. So we’re going to enjoy life.”
These Machs were too stupid to worry about the future, I saw. All they wanted to do was to ramble idly around the moon. Just not working was new and thrilling to them.
The Digger bellowed deafeningly, “Hey, one of you Tenders! Come here and give our new little pal some copper!”
A Tender came rolling rapidly up to me. Its lenses glittered at me as its flexible fuel and lubricant lines snaked out toward me.
To my disgust it solicitously squirted greasy lubricant into all of my joints. Then it poked its fuel-line at me commandingly.
My indignation reached a peak. I was blasted if I, mighty Grag, was going to be fed powdered copper fuel like a Mach! If they did it I knew I’d blow all my fuses from anger as I had that time when I tried uranium fuel.
That remembrance suddenly detonated a red-hot idea in my brain! There might be a way to get out of this yet. What Grag’s strength could not achieve his great brain possibly could!
I RAISED my voice. “Do you mean to say you Machs are still living on plain copper fuel?” I demanded scornfully. “What’s the matter with you that you don’t use the actinium you mined?”
They stared at me, obviously surprised. “Actinium?” repeated the big Digger. “Is that as good atomic fuel as copper?”
“It’s fifty times better!” I told them. “It’s radioactive and yields many times more atomic power than copper!”
“Why didn’t we think of that?” cried the Digger to the other Machs. “If actinium’s better than copper we’ll use it! It belongs to us by right — we’re the ones who mined it!”
“Yeah, sure!” they cried. “Tenders, you fill your tanks with the actinium and pass it around!”
Presently the Tenders had loaded up. They now proceeded to go around amid the Machs, pumping the actinium into the fuel-chamber of each.
I felt exultant. If uranium had blown my overload fuses radioactive actinium should do the same to the atomics of all these Machs, putting them out of commission.
But my exultation changed to apprehension when a Tender came rolling up to me, extending its fuel-line.
“No, I don’t want any actinium!” I cried. “Give it to the others!”
The Digger bellowed, “No, you get your share, guy! After all you’re the one who thought of it in the first place!”
“That’s right!” cried the other Machs.
They were crowded around me and I dared not resist further lest I awaken suspicion in their rudimentary minds. I was forced to open my fuel-plate.
The Tender eagerly pumped actinium into my fuel-chamber. As I closed my fuel-plate I felt already an access of surging new strength and heard my usually noiseless atomic generators humming loudly.
Bitterly I regretted my idea. Presently my own fuses would blow and I’d be left helpless here until Curt came looking for me.
But my fuses did not blow. It seemed that actinium, not having quite the potential energy of uranium, did not exceed the load-limit of my generators.
What it did do was to pour such energy through my generators that all my nerves seemed on fire. My head spun a little with the impact of too much energy through my brain.
“Say, you were right — actinium’s a million times better than copper!” cried the big Digger to me, rolling closer.
“I’ll say it is — I feel better than I ever felt before!” howled a looming Crusher. And to show it he proceeded to use his pile-driver arm to crush an enormous rock to fragments with two blows.
Horrified, I perceived that all the huge Machs were acting strangely. Their movements on their caterpillar treads had become slightly uncertain. They lurched and swayed as they moved and their mechanical voices were now a deafening babble.
The terrible realization flashed over me. The actinium, pouring far too much energy through their generators into their mental circuits, was stimulating them with so much power it had unhinged their reactions.
To put it crassly these Machs were as drunk as goats.
“Fellow Machs!” roared the Digger. “I say we ought to thank our new pal for giving us this actinium idea!”
“That’s right!” thundered scores of voices. “He’s a swell Mach — one of the best!”
They deafened me for they had lost all control of voice-volume. Their uncertain movements threatened to run over me as they crowded around.
I felt my own mind becoming strange. Obviously the strain of my position had worsened my psychoses so that I too felt an unhealthy influence from the actinium-power coursing through me.
It is only my psychoses that could have been responsible for my aberration that followed. For ordinarily no excess-energy fuel could have affected me in the way it did.
Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950) Page 3
