To the Stars -- And Beyond

by Robert Reginald

  They were nearing the area of approaching, an assumed front line that these unknown things must breach in order to enter the city. Robot trucks with their human cargo were breaking off at intervals to cover given areas, but he had heard no one give orders.

  They stopped eventually on Central Avenue, which led from the wilderness into the city.

  It was almost a kilometer wide, and Stead, looking into the distance felt an inward rush of despair. Eight robots and twenty-five armed men to hold a line this length!

  Stead, for his part, was appalled at the situation. They were like a few black flies on a sheet of white paper; there was no trench or cover of any kind. There were nowhere near enough robots to form a barricade.

  He was not a coward, but he realized their weapons—mostly missile—were virtually Stone Age. They would have done just as well with bows and arrows. Possibly even better and certainly, from what he had seen, a good strong saber would have come in handy too.

  “Look out! Here they come!”

  Stead had no idea who shouted the warning, but he had the strange notion it was a robot.

  There were not many of them, perhaps twenty, but they were concentrated on this part of the line.

  They were met with a hail of uneven and generally erratic fire, but they were difficult targets. They went high into the air, flipped and bounced randomly. Sometimes they shot off at an acute angle, only to bounce back again.

  There was noise, they must be boneless and rubbery. There was a sort of double slap when they hit the ground. The slap of impact and an almost immediate second slap as they flipped back.

  There seemed to be a large number of bright violet flashes, and a number of the huge maggot things turning to smoke in the air.

  He had just time to wonder where all that was coming from before he realized that one of the horrible things was coming straight at him.

  He raised his gun in a panic, fired blindly, and missed.

  There was a bright violet flash and the yellow thing, a bare two meters above him, turned abruptly into a cloud of black smoke.

  He stood, unmoving, literally frozen with shock, knowing he had escaped death by seconds. Dimly he realized that for the moment, around him, the battle was over. He was finding it difficult to take facts in order. The robots would not fight and yet they had saved the day. A robot, a flying tin ball, had saved his life—a faceless thing which Hacket had named Oscar.

  “You saved my life.” Stead found it difficult to talk; somehow he had never regarded these things as entities before. “I owe you and thank you.”

  “You owe me nothing, Mr. Stead, save recognition. In return you will receive respect but not obeisance, please accept that.”

  “I don’t fully understand.” Stead was having a hard job adjusting his mind to the situation. This was the first time in his life that he had actually spoken to a robot aside from giving orders. He was oddly fascinated yet acutely aware of events around him.

  An unknown voice said: “Hell, look at this bloody lot coming; the last little fracas was just a probe.”

  And yet another voice: “Listen to this report coming in from the labs. Fragments have been beamed for analysis. The blasted things are constructed life, synthetic; they could have been grown like vegetables or made like pills.”

  “How long before they get here?”

  “At a guess, about seven minutes, but we’ll never contain that bloody lot.”

  Stead realized it needed an answer before the fighting began again. “Someone once told me that humanity and the machines needed each other, but I have never believed and certainly never understood it.”

  The robot seemed to make a slight motion in the air. “It is all so very simple, Mr. Stead. A human writes a symphony and we, the robots can produce ten thousand variations on the original theme, but nothing new. Only humans can create; the robots can but exploit their ideas. As I say, we need each other.”

  Stead could ask no more. He could now see the things coming with rising numbers in the distance, and here was no sortie. Here was a full-scale attack, against which they stood no chance.

  Brewster thought so too, and yet, there was Hacket, apparently at ease, with a little white tube in his mouth.

  “What the hell are you doing, man, sucking a lolly?”

  Hacket answered seriously. “Calling up reinforcements, I hope. The domesticated ones will almost have got the influx mentally; the rest will follow from instinct.”

  The first wave of aliens was a bare hundred meters from the thin defense line when the opposing reinforcements swept through it. There were so many, and in such haste, that they nearly knocked the human defenders off their feet.

  They were absolutely silent until the alien things fell into the first line, and then the defenders reverted to type. There was an almost deafening sound of snapping and snarling. It became clear, in less than three minutes, that here, horrible as the invaders were, they stood no chance. They would land with a slapping impact and attempt to bounce again, but never make it. A few might rise a meter or so with the fangs of two or three dogs sunk into their bodies.

  Brewster, with the odd feeling that his eyes were without movement, had no need to lift his gun. The aliens were being torn to pieces by an army of dogs, six times their number. Alsatians, toy dogs, mongrels, hunting dogs, working together.

  Even Hacket was taken aback; he had not expected a response like this. In due time, of course, perhaps a million years, the lion would defend the lamb, but now, whatever it was he radiated, or gave off, did little more than stimulate the genes of unity in Earth’s wildlife. He wondered briefly how many other types of life he had affected in his short tour of infection.

  Deep in the mountains, the alien observer could have told him. He destroyed the remainder of his test army and made preparations for departure. He nor any of his race would ever think of returning. They might, with some considerable effort, have conquered the dominant life form, man.

  It had become clear to see, however, that it was not man alone they would have to fight. Even man himself had not realized that even robots would fight to defend Earth.

  There were other things, too. His synthetic creatures being caught and brought down by veritable cocoons of wasps. Devoured on the ground after two jumps by masses of soldier ants.

  A race could defeat a dominant life form, but not the living creatures of an entire planet. The message written was very, very clear to the alien—

  Invaders, Beware. This is our world.

  THE LAST AMERICAN

  by James B. Johnson

  “Oh my God, Chief, I’ve finally found something.”

  Gerrard Lefever looked over at his assistant. “What is it, Ten?”

  Downing’s fingers flew over his console. Downing preferred to be called by his given names, Michael McGilicutty, but Lefever couldn’t resist “Ten.”

  “Smith, John,” Downing said, “so many of them.”

  “I already knew that,” Lefever told him.

  “If he’s the same one,” Downing paused and looked significantly at Lefever, “I’ve found major disaster in his background.”

  “Is it the key for which we’ve been looking?” Lefever knew that Downing would tell him the info at his own pace.

  “Gee, Chief, I’m not qualified to judge that.”

  “Right. What is it, Ten? Give me the gist, will you?”

  “Lemme call it all up first, Chief.”

  Let this be it, Lefever begged his own god of luck. Please. So much time spent. So much money and resources. Against just one man. So much political pressure. And, he thought, I am sick to death of fighting that one man. Gerrard Lefever swung his station around to look out the bubble-window. The view of the Grand Canyon was spectacular. He’d selected this location for his office just last week. The week before, the office had overlooked Niagara Falls, and before that Coats Island in north Hudson Bay. He also favored the desert of Baja California, the coast of Newfoundland in the winter, and Hawaii an
ytime. Anything but the capital, Chicago.

  As the Director of Parks and Reservations Division of the Interior Ministry of the North American Federation, Lefever could locate his office anywhere he desired. With the bubble technology, all they had to do was install the temp propulsion units and go.

  He was afraid, though, that he would have to move to the San Antonio district, to his one remaining reservation. What a pain! That damn Smith. They still didn’t know if John Smith was the old man’s legitimate name, or if he was using “John Smith” as a label, sort of an “everyman” American. Talk about your resistance to change. Maybe the info Ten had discovered would allow them to confirm Smith’s identity.

  “Got it, Chief.” Ten leaned back and smiled like he’d just solved the Sunday crossword puzzle. Once, as a child, Lefever had watched some ancient videos as part of a school project. There was one in which a bear named Yogi Bear had a sidekick named Boo Boo. Ten reminded Lefever of Boo Boo. Throw in academic brilliance, though, he had to admit. But Ten Downing’s lack of personal initiative, his childlike enthusiasm, and his lapdog devotion echoed the long-gone Boo Boo’s. Ten was also highly empathetic. You didn’t kill a butterfly or a snake in his presence.

  “Are you going to tell me, or are you going to smirk all day?”

  “Oh yeah, Chief, surely. Um, where should I start?”

  “Try the beginning. And punch in the remotes at the Alamo Reservation.”

  “Right away, Chief. You want I should track the old geezer around?”

  “Yes.”

  Downing made his console hum like a prodigy on a piano. The wall opaqued into a screen, and the remotes at the Alamo began tracking “John Smith.” Since he was the only human on the reservation, the remotes had no trouble picking up his IR signature and activating when he was in each unit’s area of coverage. Additionally, several mobile units hovered in the air near him.

  “Not again,” said the old man as his picture swam onto the screen. The mobile units had floated into place.

  The old man spat tobacco juice on the pavement and raised his ancient M-16 and shot the frontal mobile unit. The picture went blank and shifted to a permanent unit with an oblique angle.

  Smith spat again and began walking. He could ignore surveillance for hours or take immediate and savage umbrage at it in an instant.

  Smith was apparently “doing his rounds.” He walked to the bubble, glared out at the Alamo Reservation, and turned and walked counterclockwise, rifle at ready. He wore Vietnam jungle boots; Union Army trousers, stripe and all; a naval gunner’s flak jacket from WWII; and a WWI helmet. All from the museum, as was his armament. A ludicrous picture, Lefever thought, if it weren’t so serious.

  Lefever cursed to himself. His job would be so much easier if those damn “Freedom of—” laws didn’t allow the broadcast of Smith’s every move. Broadcasters had set up a dedicated channel, for cable, satellite, and Internet broadcast, tapping into the government feed of the remotes at the Alamo Reservation. What Lefever and Downing watched, so too could the entire nation—and the rest of the world, should they so choose. Downing had told him that the ratings were gaining daily, as the instant psych experts reported drama peaks and predicted an end to the confrontation.

  “It’s on your console now,” Downing said.

  Lefever stood and did some stretching exercises. His tall, wide frame seemed to crack up and down like the time his wrists had when he hit a hidden root with his seven iron—and had to finish the round almost one-handed. What a match that had been. When a lot younger, he’d toyed with the idea of becoming a golf pro (after all, he was from Augusta); but a predilection for management had started him in this line. “The Organization Man” they called him. By the rules, for the rules, and of the rules.

  “Just give me the outline, Ten.” Lefever continued his stretching.

  Downing scrunched up his cherubic face. “Okay, it’s gotta be our John Smith.”

  Lefever grunted. Downing probably unconsciously needed approval. “You done good, Ten.”

  “Gee, thanks, Chief. See, when John Smith was a young man, he was married and had a kid.” Downing fell silent.

  “Well?”

  “Jeez, it’s sad, Chief, really sad.”

  “Tell me.” Lefever put command into his voice.

  “It happened near Dallas and Ft. Worth sixty-three years ago.”

  Lefever did some neck exercises.

  “John Smith was twenty-eight. His son was eight.” A tear leaked out of Ten’s right eye. “They were at a baseball game. Some sort of altercation between the son and a man over the possession of a foul ball. Smith intervened on behalf of his son. The man spat at Smith, grabbed the kid’s hand, and bit the end of the kid’s middle finger. Jeez. It says here the man backed off and told Smith, ‘I have the AIDS Six strain.’ Smith blanched and whipped out something called a Buck knife and cut off his son’s finger at the hand.” Downing took a cool-wipe from the dispenser and ran it over his face and the back of his neck.

  Finally, thought Lefever. Finally, some insight into Smith’s character. Tragedy, early in his life. “Then what happened?”

  “Fascinating,” Ten said, dropping the cool-wipe into the disposal, eyes glued to his console. “The crowd was building around them, watching in horror this tiny human drama.” Ten was wont to convert governmental reports to his own viewpoints. “The man howled with laughter and said, ‘I lied.’ Jeez, Chief.”

  Lefever turned his head to watch Smith complete his rounds. The Alamo Reservation had shrunk as people left. The bubble dome had been reduced in size along with the population decline. Thus it hadn’t taken Smith long to make his rounds around the perimeter. The Alamo Reservation had once covered the entire city of San Antonio and all of Bexar County. But as the population dropped, so, too, did the land dedicated to the United States of America (even though the states were no longer involved, the inhabitants had opted to retain the name). Now the Alamo Reservation was bounded by Houston Street, Bowie Street, Crockett Street, and South Broadway. Just pavement, the buildings, and small plots of grass.

  Smith stopped in front of the Alamo and punched keypads on a small console. “The Star Spangled Banner” rang out, a recording obviously from a full military band. And slowly the Stars and Stripes rose up the flagpole. John Smith stood at attention and held a salute. Lefever fought a compulsion to stand at attention himself. He shook his head to clear it. The front of the Alamo was less than impressive: age-yellowed stone, four crumbling columns, arched doorway with tall double doors. Cobblestones out front.

  Downing was watching, his cheeks trembling.

  When the last notes faded away, Smith began reciting, “I pledge allegiance to the flag….”

  After he dropped his hand from his chest, Smith made his way through the front doors of the Alamo, turned and faced the mobile following him. “Colonel Travis went through these doors. And Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. The company of heroes. In 1836, those Americans and others stood off Santa Anna for twelve days. Are you listening, Lefever?” He turned and continued walking. The halls and rooms were high-ceilinged, dark and dingy; the walls close together—so unlike the common conception of the Alamo. The floors consisted of flagstones, and portraits and plaques adorned the stone walls.

  Lefever reflected that John Smith had held off the NorAmFed for years longer than twelve days. Lefever didn’t feel up to confronting Smith today. Maybe Smith didn’t feel like hassling him either.

  Smith went through the building quickly, and out the back into the courtyard. The monitors followed him into the modern facilities that had originally been designed for tourist sales, but which Smith now used for his own quarters. He stopped at the door to the bathroom. He looked up at the remote and said, “I’m sending you a personal message.” He went in closed the door. While there was a remote in the bathroom, it took a command override to activate it, and Lefever had never done so.

  Downing sighed.

  “Go ahead and finish, Ten.”


  “Sure, Chief. Um, it seems that John Smith jammed a cloth into his son’s wound to stop the bleeding. He grabbed an ice drink from a nearby spectator and dumped the liquid, saving the ice. He picked up the, ugh, finger, and put it in the cup. His son was screaming like a scalded banshee, not understanding a damn thing and scared and wounded and bleeding and thinking his father had for no reason chopped off his forpin’ finger and it was his fault for letting the stranger bite him and there was his father putting his finger on ice and this terrible black look on his dad’s face and anger building like a fried cat and the crowd silenced and edging back in fear and the kid fainted right there in section 4L and Smith bends over him and ties the cloth around his son’s hand so that the pressure holds against the amputation and checks the kid’s breathing and stands and looks at the man who’d caused all this and the man tries to run but trips over a seat back and gets up and runs up the stairs to the exit and the crowd doesn’t move and he can’t escape and he goes downstairs and the players on the field have stopped and are watching and security men are scrambling to get to the middle of the mess and the crowd won’t let them in—”

  “Ten! Slow down and breathe, all right?”

  “Um, yessir.” Downing stood and Lefever was surprised at the sweat all over the young man’s face. Downing’s eyes remained on the console. He breathed deeply several times.

  “Are you okay now?”

  “Yes, Chief, thanks. It seems that Smith had cut off the miscreant’s ten fingers, two ears, one penis, a set of gonads, and was working on the toes when security finally broke through the now terrified crowd and pulled him off.”

  More input for his decisions, Lefever thought. At last, something with which to work. “What was the final outcome?”

  “Um, it says here that nobody would prosecute John Smith, that his actions were quote justified end quote. But his child was traumatized by the events and required psychological treatment for years. Attempts to reattach the finger failed.”

  Lefever hung from a bar placed there for that purpose and listened to vertebrae pop. “And?”