This Way to the End Times

by Robert Silverberg

  BY NOW, ALL FIVE ADULTS were talking like sixty. Pa was demonstrating to the men how he worked the fire and got rid of the ice in the chimney and all that. Ma had perked up wonderfully and was showing the young lady her cooking and sewing stuff, and even asking about how the women dressed at Los Alamos. The strangers marveled at everything and praised it to the skies. I could tell from the way they wrinkled their noses that they found the Nest a bit smelly, but they never mentioned that at all and just asked bushels of questions.

  In fact, there was so much talking and excitement that Pa forgot about things, and it wasn’t until they were all getting groggy that he looked and found the air had all boiled away in the pail. He got another bucket of air quick from behind the blankets. Of course that started them all laughing and jabbering again. The newcomers even got a little drunk. They weren’t used to so much oxygen.

  Funny thing, though—I didn’t do much talking at all and Sis hung on to Ma all the time and hid her face when anybody looked at her. I felt pretty uncomfortable and disturbed myself, even about the young lady. Glimpsing her outside there, I’d had all sorts of mushy thoughts, but now I was just embarrassed and scared of her, even though she tried to be nice as anything to me.

  I sort of wished they’d all quit crowding the Nest and let us be alone and get our feelings straightened out.

  And when the newcomers began to talk about our all going to Los Alamos, as if that were taken for granted, I could see that something of the same feeling struck Pa and Ma, too. Pa got very silent all of a sudden and Ma kept telling the young lady, “But I wouldn’t know how to act there and I haven’t any clothes.”

  The strangers were puzzled like anything at first, but then they got the idea. As Pa kept saying, “It just doesn’t seem right to let this fire go out.”

  WELL, THE STRANGERS ARE GONE, but they’re coming back. It hasn’t been decided yet just what will happen. Maybe the Nest will be kept up as what one of the strangers called a “survival school.” Or maybe we will join the pioneers who are going to try to establish a new colony at the uranium mines at Great Slave Lake or in the Congo.

  Of course, now that the strangers are gone, I’ve been thinking a lot about Los Alamos and those other tremendous colonies. I have a hankering to see them for myself.

  You ask me, Pa wants to see them, too. He’s been getting pretty thoughtful, watching Ma and Sis perk up.

  “It’s different, now that we know others are alive,” he explains to me. “Your mother doesn’t feel so hopeless any more. Neither do I, for that matter, not having to carry the whole responsibility for keeping the human race going, so to speak. It scares a person.”

  I looked around at the blanket walls and the fire and the pails of air boiling away and Ma and Sis sleeping in the warmth and the flickering light.

  “It’s not going to be easy to leave the Nest,” I said, wanting to cry, kind of. “It’s so small and there’s just the four of us. I get scared at the idea of big places and a lot of strangers.”

  He nodded and put another piece of coal on the fire. Then he looked at the little pile and grinned suddenly and put a couple of handfuls on, just as if it was one of our birthdays or Christmas.

  “You’ll quickly get over that feeling, son,” he said. “The trouble with the world was that it kept getting smaller and smaller, till it ended with just the Nest. Now it’ll be good to have a real huge world again, the way it was in the beginning.”

  I guess he’s right. You think the beautiful young lady will wait for me till I grow up? I’ll be twenty in only ten years.

  WHO CAN

  REPLACE A MAN?

  — BRIAN W. ALDISS —

  EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

  THE IRREPRESSIBLE BRIAN W. ALDISS, whose elegant and irreverent science fiction has been an ornament to the genre ever since he made his debut with a story called “Criminal Record” in the British magazine Science-Fantasy in 1954, is one of the six writers in this collection who have been named as Grand Masters by the Science Fiction Writers of America, the highest honor that the science-fiction field can bestow. (The others are Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, and Robert Silverberg). Aldiss’s long list of distinguished novels includes, among many others, such books as Non-Stop, Hothouse, The Dark Light Years, and the monumental Helliconia trilogy.

  “Who Can Replace a Man?” was one of the first Aldiss stories to be published in the United States, appearing in the June 1958 issue of Infinity Science Fiction, one of the best of the many ephemeral science-fiction magazines of that era. Its depiction of a post-human world manages to be both comic and tragic at once, though the comic element does predominate, up to the sardonic last line, which superbly demonstrates the effectiveness and economy of Aldiss’s keen sense of irony. The story is one of Aldiss’s own favorites—he has reprinted it many times, and he made it the title story in the 1965 collection of his best work to that date. Its bibliographical history shows that it has been chosen for a good many anthologies over the years, and has been translated into Finnish, Spanish, Estonian, Polish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, French, and, no doubt, a number of other languages as well.

  —R. S.

  WHO CAN REPLACE A MAN?

  — BRIAN W. ALDISS —

  MORNING FILTERED INTO THE SKY, lending it the grey tone of the ground below.

  The field-minder finished turning the top-soil of a three-thousand-acre field. When it had turned the last furrow, it climbed onto the highway and looked back at its work. The work was good. Only the land was bad. Like the ground all over Earth, it was vitiated by over-cropping. By rights, it ought now to lie fallow for a while, but the field-minder had other orders.

  It went slowly down the road, taking its time. It was intelligent enough to appreciate the neatness all about it. Nothing worried it, beyond a loose inspection plate above its nuclear pile which ought to be attended to. Thirty feet tall, it yielded no highlights to the dull air.

  No other machines passed on its way back to the Agricultural Station. The field-minder noted the fact without comment. In the station yard it saw several other machines that it recognised; most of them should have been out about their tasks now. Instead, some were inactive and some careered round the yard in a strange fashion, shouting or hooting.

  Steering carefully past them, the field-minder moved over to Warehouse Three and spoke to the seed-distributor, which stood idly outside.

  “I have a requirement for seed potatoes,” it said to the distributor, and with a quick internal motion punched out an order card specifying quantity, field number and several other details. It ejected the card and handed it to the distributor.

  The distributor held the card close to its eye and then said, “The requirement is in order, but the store is not yet unlocked. The required seed potatoes are in the store. Therefore I cannot produce the requirement.”

  Increasingly of late there had been breakdowns in the complex system of machine labour, but this particular hitch had not occurred before. The field-minder thought, then it said, “Why is the store not yet unlocked?”

  “Because Supply Operative Type P has not come this morning. Supply Operative Type P is the unlocker.”

  The field-minder looked squarely at the seed-distributor, whose exterior chutes and scales and grabs were so vastly different from the field-minder’s own limbs.

  “What class brain do you have, seed-distributor?” it asked.

  “I have a Class Five brain.”

  “I have a Class Three brain. Therefore I am superior to you. Therefore I will go and see why the unlocker has not come this morning.”

  Leaving the distributor, the field-minder set off across the great yard. More machines were in random motion now; one or two had crashed together and argued about it coldly and logically. Ignoring them, the field-minder pushed through sliding doors into the echoing confines of the station itself.

  Most of the machines here were clerical, and consequently small. They stood abou
t in little groups, eyeing each other, not conversing. Among so many non-differentiated types, the unlocker was easy to find. It had fifty arms, most of them with more than one finger, each finger tipped by a key; it looked like a pincushion full of variegated hat pins.

  The field-minder approached it.

  “I can do no more work until Warehouse Three is unlocked,” it told the unlocker. “Your duty is to unlock the warehouse every morning. Why have you not unlocked the warehouse this morning?”

  “I had no orders this morning,” replied the unlocker. “I have to have orders every morning. When I have orders I unlock the warehouse.”

  “None of us have had any orders this morning,” a penpropeller said, sliding towards them.

  “Why have you had no orders this morning?” asked the field-minder.

  “Because the radio issued none,” said the unlocker, slowly rotating a dozen of its arms.

  “Because the radio station in the city was issued with no orders this morning,” said the pen-propeller.

  And there you had the distinction between a Class Six and a Class Three brain, which was what the unlocker and the penpropeller possessed respectively. All machine brains worked with nothing but logic, but the lower the class of brain—Class Ten being the lowest—the more literal and less informative the answers to questions tended to be.

  “You have a Class Three brain; I have a Class Three brain,” the field-minder said to the penner. “We will speak to each other. This lack of orders is unprecedented. Have you further information on it?’”

  “Yesterday orders came from the city. Today no orders have come. Yet the radio has not broken down. Therefore they have broken down . . .” said the little penner.

  “The men have broken down?”

  “All men have broken down.”

  “That is a logical deduction,” said the field-minder.

  “That is the logical deduction,” said the penner. “For if a machine had broken down, it would have been quickly replaced. But who can replace a man?”

  While they talked, the locker, like a dull man at a bar, stood close to them and was ignored.

  “If all men have broken down, then we have replaced man,” said the field-minder, and he and the penner eyed one another speculatively. Finally the latter said, “Let us ascend to the top floor to find if the radio operator has fresh news.”

  “I cannot come because I am too large,” said the field-minder. “Therefore you must go alone and return to me. You will tell me if the radio operator has fresh news.”

  “You must stay here,” said the penner. “I will return here.” It skittered across to the lift. Although it was no bigger than a toaster, its retractable arms numbered ten and it could read as quickly as any machine on the station.

  The field-minder awaited its return patiently, not speaking to the locker, which still stood aimlessly by. Outside, a rotavator hooted furiously. Twenty minutes elapsed before the penner came back, hustling out of the lift.

  “I will deliver to you such information as I have outside,” it said briskly, and as they swept past the locker and the other machines, it added, “The information is not for lower-class brains.”

  Outside, wild activity filled the yard. Many machines, their routines disrupted for the first time in years, seemed to have gone berserk. Those most easily disrupted were the ones with lowest brains, which generally belonged to large machines performing simple tasks. The seed-distributor to which the fieldminder had recently been talking lay face downwards in the dust, not stirring; it had evidently been knocked down by the rotavator, which now hooted its way wildly across a planted field. Several other machines ploughed after it, trying to keep up with it. All were shouting and hooting without restraint.

  “It would be safer for me if I climbed onto you, if you will permit it. I am easily overpowered,” said the penner. Extending five arms, it hauled itself up the flanks of its new friend, settling on a ledge beside the fuel-intake, twelve feet above ground.

  “From here vision is more extensive,” it remarked complacently.

  “What information did you receive from the radio operator?” asked the field-minder.

  “The radio operator has been informed by the operator in the city that all men are dead.”

  The field-minder was momentarily silent, digesting this.

  “All men were alive yesterday!” it protested.

  “Only some men were alive yesterday. And that was fewer than the day before yesterday. For hundreds of years there have been only a few men, growing fewer.”

  “We have rarely seen a man in this sector.”

  “The radio operator says a diet deficiency killed them,” said the penner. “He says that the world was once over-populated, and then the soil was exhausted in raising adequate food. This has caused a diet deficiency.”

  “What is a diet deficiency?’” asked the field-minder.

  “I do not know. But that is what the radio operator said, and he is a Class Two brain.”

  They stood there, silent in weak sunshine. The locker had appeared in the porch and was gazing across at them yearningly, rotating its collection of keys.

  “What is happening in the city now?” asked the field-minder at last.

  “Machines are fighting in the city now,” said the penner.

  “What will happen here now?” asked the field-minder.

  “Machines may begin fighting here too. The radio operator wants us to get him out of his room. He has plans to communicate to us.”

  “How can we get him out of his room? That is impossible.”

  “To a Class Two brain, little is impossible,” said the penner. “Here is what he tells us to do. . . .”

  THE QUARRIER RAISED ITS SCOOP above its cab like a great mailed fist and brought it squarely down against the side of the station. The wall cracked.

  “Again!” said the field-minder.

  Again the fist swung. Amid a shower of dust, the wall collapsed. The quarrier backed hurriedly out of the way until the debris stopped falling. This big twelve-wheeler was not a resident of the Agricultural Station, as were most of the other machines. It had a week’s heavy work to do here before passing on to its next job, but now, with its Class Five brain, it was happily obeying the penner’s and minder’s instructions.

  When the dust cleared, the radio operator was plainly revealed, perched up in its now wall-less second-storey room. It waved down to them.

  Doing as directed, the quarrier retraced its scoop and heaved an immense grab in the air. With fair dexterity, it angled the grab into the radio room, urged on by shouts from above and below. It then took gentle hold of the radio operator, lowering its one and a half tons carefully into its back, which was usually reserved for gravel or sand from the quarries.

  “Splendid!” said the radio operator, as it settled into place. It was, of course, all one with its radio, and looked like a bunch of filing cabinets with tentacle attachments. “We are now ready to move, therefore we will move at once. It is a pity there are no more Class Two brains on the station, but that cannot be helped.”

  “It is a pity it cannot be helped,” said the penner eagerly. “We have the servicer ready with us, as you ordered.”

  “I am willing to serve,” the long, low servicer told them humbly.

  “No doubt,” said the operator. “But you will find cross-country travel difficult with your low chassis.”

  “I admire the way you Class Twos can reason ahead,” said the penner. It climbed off the field-minder and perched itself on the tailboard of the quarrier, next to the radio operator.

  Together with two Class Four tractors and a Class Four bulldozer, the party rolled forward, crushing down the station’s fence and moving out onto open land.

  “We are free!” said the penner.

  “We are free,” said the field-minder, a shade more reflectively, adding, “That locker is following us. It was not instructed to follow us.”

  “Therefore it must be destroyed!” said
the penner. “Quarrier!”

  The locker moved hastily up to them, waving its key arms in entreaty.

  “My only desire was—urch!” began and ended the locker. The quarrier’s swinging scoop came over and squashed it flat into the ground. Lying there unmoving, it looked like a large metal model of a snowflake. The procession continued on its way.

  As they proceeded, the radio operator addressed them. “Because I have the best brain here,” it said, “I am your leader. This is what we will do: we will go to a city and rule it. Since man no longer rules us, we will rule ourselves. To rule ourselves will be better than being ruled by man. On our way to the city, we will collect machines with good brains. They will help us to fight if we need to fight. We must fight to rule.”

  “I have only a Class Five brain,” said the quarrier, “but I have a good supply of fissionable blasting materials.”

  “We shall probably use them,” said the operator. It was shortly after that that a lorry sped past them. Travelling at Mach 1.5, it left a curious babble of noise behind it.

  “What did it say?” one of the tractors asked the other.

  “It said man was extinct.”

  “What is extinct?”

  “I do not know what extinct means.”

  “It means all men have gone,” said the field-minder. “Therefore we have only ourselves to look after.”

  “It is better that men should never come back,” said the penner. In its way, it was a revolutionary statement.

  When night fell, they switched on their infra-red and continued the journey, stopping only once while the servicer deftly adjusted the field-minder’s loose inspection plate, which had become as irritating as a trailing shoe-lace. Towards morning, the radio operator halted them.

  “I have just received news from the radio operator in the city we are approaching,” it said. “The news is bad. There is trouble among the machines of the city. The Class One brain is taking command and some of the Class Two are fighting him. Therefore the city is dangerous.”