The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF

by Martin Greenberg

  Something made him shudder. In its slender naked grace, he could see the power of all those teeming hordes, benevolent and yet appalling, perfect and invincible. The flimsy little weapon that Sledge called an integrator seemed suddenly a forlorn and foolish hope. A black depression settled upon him, but he didn’t dare to show it.

  Underhill went circumspectly down the basement steps, next morning, to steal his own tools. He found the basement enlarged and changed. The new floor, warm and dark and elastic, made his feet as silent as a humanoid’s. The new walls shone softly. Neat luminous signs identified several new doors: LAUNDRY, STORAGE, GAME ROOM, WORKSHOP.

  He paused uncertainly in front of the last. The new sliding panel glowed with a soft greenish light. It was locked. The lock had no keyhole, but only a little oval plate of some white metal, which doubtless covered a rhodomagnetic relay. He pushed at it, uselessly.

  “At your service, Mr. Underhill.” He made a guilty start, and tried not to show the sudden trembling in his knees. He had made sure that one humanoid would be busy for half an hour, washing Aurora’s hair, and he hadn’t known there was another in the house. It must have come out of the door marked storage, for it stood there motionless beneath the sign, benevolently solicitous, beautiful and terrible. “What do you wish?”

  “Er . . . nothing.” Its blind steel eyes were staring, and he felt that it must see his secret purpose. He groped desperately for logic. “Just looking around.” His jerky voice came hoarse and dry. “Some improvements you’ve made!” He nodded desperately at the door marked GAME ROOM “What’s in there?”

  It didn’t even have to move to work the concealed relay. The bright panel slid silently open, as he started toward it. Dark walls, beyond, burst into soft luminescence. The room was bare.

  “We are manufacturing recreational equipment,” it explained brightly. “We shall furnish the room as soon as possible.”

  To end an awkward pause, Underhill muttered desperately, “Little Frank has a set of darts, and I think we had some old exercising clubs.”

  “We have taken them away,” the humanoid informed him softly. “Such instruments are dangerous. We shall furnish safe equipment.”

  Suicide, he remembered, was also forbidden.

  “A set of wooden blocks, I suppose,” he said bitterly.

  “Wooden blocks are dangerously hard,” it told him gently “and wooden splinters can be harmful. But we manufacture plastic building blocks, which are quite safe. Do you wish a set of those?”

  He stared at its dark, graceful face, speechless.

  “We shall also have to remove the tools from your workshop,” it informed him softly. “Such tools are excessively dangerous, but we can supply you with equipment for shaping soft plastics.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered uneasily. “No rush about that.”

  He started to retreat, and the humanoid stopped him.

  “Now that you have lost your business,” it urged, “we suggest that you formally accept our total service. Assignors have a preference, and we shall be able to complete your household staff, at once.”

  “No rush about that, either,” he said grimly.

  He escaped from the house – although he had to wait for it to open the back door for him – and climbed the stair to the garage apartment. Sledge let him in. He sank into the crippled kitchen chair, grateful for the cracked walls that didn’t shine and the door that a man could work.

  “I couldn’t get the tools,” he reported despairingly, “and they are going to take them.”

  By gray daylight, the old man looked bleak and pale. His raw-boned face was drawn, and the hollowed sockets deeply shadowed, as if he hadn’t slept. Underhill saw the tray of neglected food, still forgotten on the floor.

  “I’ll go back with you.” The old man was worn and ill, yet his tortured eyes had a spark of undying purpose. “We must have the tools. I believe my immunity will protect us both.”

  He found a battered traveling bag. Underhill went with him back down the steps, and across to the house. At the back door, he produced a tiny horseshoe of white palladium, and touched it to the metal oval. The door slid open promptly, and they went on through the kitchen to the basement stair.

  A black little mechanical stood at the sank, washing dishes with never a splash or a clatter. Underhill glanced at it uneasily – he supposed this must be the one that had come upon him from the storage room, since the other should still be busy with Aurora’s hair.

  Sledge’s dubious immunity seemed a very uncertain defense against its vast, remote intelligence. Underhill felt a tingling shudder. He hurried on, breathless and relieved, for it ignored them.

  The basement corridor was dark. Sledge touched the tiny horse-shoe to another relay to light the walls. He opened the workshop door, and lit the walls inside.

  The shop had been dismantled. Benches and cabinets were demolished. The old concrete walls had been covered with some sleek, luminous stuff. For one sick moment, Underhill thought that the tools were already gone. Then he found them, piled in a corner with the archery set that Aurora had bought the summer before – another item too dangerous for fragile and suicidal humanity – all ready for disposal.

  They loaded the bag with the tiny lathe, the drill and vise, and a few smaller tools. Underhill took up the burden, and Sledge extinguished the wall light and closed the door. Still the humanoid was busy at the sink, and still it didn’t seem aware of them.

  Sledge was suddenly blue and wheezing, and he had to stop to cough on the outside steps, but at last they got back to the little apartment, where the invaders were forbidden to intrude. Underhill mounted the lathe on the battered library table in the tiny front room, and went to work. Slowly, day by day, the director took form.

  Sometimes Underhill’s doubts came back. Sometimes, when he watched the cyanotic color of Sledge’s haggard face and the wild trembling of his twisted, shrunken hands, he was afraid the old man’s mind might be as ill as his body, and his plan to stop the dark invaders, all foolish illusion.

  Sometimes, when he studied that tiny machine on the kitchen table, the pivoted needle and the thick lead ball, the whole project seemed the sheerest folly. How could anything detonate the seas of a planet so far away that its very mother star was a telescopic object?

  The humanoids, however, always cured his doubts.

  It was always hard for Underhill to leave the shelter of the little apartment, because he didn’t feel at home in the bright new world the humanoids were building. He didn’t care for the shining splendor of his new bathroom, because he couldn’t work the taps – some suicidal human being might try to drown himself. He didn’t like the windows that only a mechanical could open – a man might accidentally fall, or suicidally jump – or even the majestic music room with the wonderful glittering radiophonograph that only a humanoid could play.

  He began to share the old man’s desperate urgency, but Sledge warned him solemnly, “You mustn’t spend too much time with me. You mustn’t let them guess our work is so important. Better put on an act – you’re slowly getting to like them, and you’re just killing time, helping me.”

  Underhill tried, but he was not an actor. He went dutifully home for his meals. He tried painfully to invent conversation – about anything else than detonating planets. He tried to seem enthusiastic, when Aurora took him to inspect some remarkable improvement to the house. He applauded Gay’s recitals, and went with Frank for hikes in the wonderful new parks.

  And he saw what the humanoids did to his family. That was enough to renew his faith in Sledge’s integrator, and redouble his determination that the humanoids must be stopped.

  Aurora, in the beginning, had bubbled with praise for the marvelous new mechanicals. They did the household drudgery, brought the food and planned the meals and washed the children’s necks. They turned her out in stunning gowns, and gave her plenty of time for cards.

  Now, she had too much time.

  She had really liked to cook –
a few special dishes, at least, that were family favorites. But stoves were hot and knives were sharp. Kitchens were altogether too dangerous for careless and suicidal human beings.

  Fine needlework had been her hobby, but the humanoids took away her needles. She had enjoyed driving the car, but that was no longer allowed. She turned for escape to a shelf of novels, but the humanoids took them all away, because they dealt with unhappy people in dangerous situations.

  One afternoon, Underhill found her in tears.

  “It’s too much,” she gasped bitterly. “I hate and loathe every naked one of them. They seemed so wonderful at first, but now they won’t even let me eat a bite of candy. Can’t we get rid of them dear? Ever”

  A blind little mechanical was standing at his elbow, and he had to say they couldn’t.

  “Our function is to serve all men, forever,” it assured them softly. “It was necessary for us to take your sweets, Mrs. Underhill, because the slightest degree of overweight reduces life-expectancy.”

  Not even the children escaped that absolute solicitude. Frank was robbed of a whole arsenal of lethal instruments – football and boxing gloves, pocketknife, tops, slingshot, and skates. He didn’t like the harmless plastic toys, which replaced them. He tried to run away, but a humanoid recognized him on the road, and brought him back to school.

  Gay had always dreamed of being a great musician. The new mechanicals had replaced her human teachers, since they came. Now, one evening when Underhill asked her to play, she announced quietly.

  “Father, I’m not going to play the violin any more.”

  “Why, darling?” He stared at her, shocked, and saw the bitter resolve on her face. “You’ve been doing so well – especially since the humanoids took over your lessons.”

  “They’re the trouble, Father.” Her voice, for a child’s, sounded strangely tired and old. “They are too good. No matter how long and hard I try, I could never be as good as they are. It isn’t any use. Don’t you understand, Father?” Her voice quivered. “It just isn’t any use.”

  He understood. Renewed resolution sent him back to his secret task. The humanoids had to be stopped. Slowly the director grew, until a time came finally when Sledge’s bent and unsteady fingers fitted into place the last tiny part that Underhill had made, and carefully soldered the last connection. Huskily, the old man whispered.

  “It’s done.”

  That was another dusk. Beyond the windows of the shabby little rooms – windows of common glass, bubble-marred and flimsy, but simple enough for a man to manage – the town of Two Rivers had assumed an alien splendor. The old street lamps were gone, but now the coming night was challenged by the walls of strange new mansions and villas, all aglow with color. A few dark and silent humanoids still were busy on the luminous roofs of the palace across the alley.

  Inside the humble walls of the small manmade apartment, the new director was mounted on the end of the little kitchen table – which Underhill had reinforced and bolted to the floor. Soldered busbars joined director and integrator, and the thin palladium needle swung obediently as Sledge tested the knobs with his battered, quivering fingers.

  “Ready,” he said hoarsely.

  His rusty voice seemed calm enough, at first, but his breathing was too fast. His big gnarled hands began to tremble violently, and Underhill saw the sudden blue that stained his pinched and haggard face. Seated on the high stool, he clutched desperately at the edge of the table. Underhill saw his agony, and hurried to bring his medicine. He gulped it, and his rasping breath began to slow.

  “Thanks,” his whisper rasped unevenly. “I’ll be all right. I’ve time enough.” He glanced out at the few dark naked things that still flitted shadowlike about the golden towers and the glowing crimson dome of the palace across the alley. “Watch them,” he said. “Tell me when they stop.”

  He waited to quiet the trembling of his hands, and then began to move the director’s knobs. The integrator’s long needle swung, as silently as light.

  Human eyes were blind to that force, which might detonate a planet. Human ears were deaf to it. The cathode-ray tube was mounted in the director cabinet, to make the faraway target visible to feeble human senses.

  The needle was pointing at the kitchen wall, but that would be transparent to the beam. The little machine looked harmless as a toy, and it was silent as a moving humanoid.

  The needle swung, and spots of greenish light moved across the tube’s fluorescent field, representing the stars that were scanned by the timeless, searching beam – silently seeking out the world to be destroyed.

  Underhill recognized familiar constellations, vastly dwarfed. They crept across the field, as the silent needle swung. When three stars formed an unequal triangle in the center of the field, the needle steadied suddenly. Sledge touched other knobs, and the green points spread apart. Between them, another fleck of green was born.

  “The Wing!” whispered Sledge.

  The other stars spread beyond the field, and that green fleck grew. It was alone in the field, a bright and tiny disk. Suddenly, then, a dozen other tiny pips were visible, spaced close about it.

  “Wing IV!”

  The old man’s whisper was hoarse and breathless. His hands quivered on the knobs, and the fourth pip outward from the disk crept to the center of the field. It grew, and the others spread away. It began to tremble like Sledge’s hands.

  “Sit very still,” came his rasping whisper. “Hold your breath. Nothing must disturb the needle.” He reached for another knob, and the touch set the greenish image to dancing violently. He drew his hand back, kneaded and flexed it with the other.

  “Now!” His whisper was hushed and strained. He nodded at the window. “Tell me when they stop.”

  Reluctantly, Underhill dragged his eyes from that intense gaunt figure, stooped over the thing that seemed a futile toy. He looked out again, at two or three little black mechanicals busy about the shining roofs across the alley.

  He waited for them to stop.

  He didn’t dare to breathe. He felt the loud, hurried hammer of his heart, and the nervous quiver of his muscles. He tried to steady himself, tried not to think of the world about to be exploded, so far away that the flash would not reach this planet for another century and longer. The loud hoarse voice startled him:

  “Have they stopped?”

  He shook his head, and breathed again. Carrying their unfamiliar tools and strange materials, the small black machines were still busy across the alley, building an elaborate cupola above that glowing crimson dome.

  “They haven’t stopped,” he said.

  “Then we’ve failed.” The old man’s voice was thin and ill. “I don’t know why.”

  The door rattled, then. They had locked it, but the flimsy bolt was intended only to stop men. Metal snapped, and the door swung open. A black mechanical came in, on soundless graceful feet. Its silvery voice purred softly,

  “At your service, Mr. Sledge.”

  The old man stared at it, with glazing, stricken eyes.

  “Get out of here!” he rasped bitterly. “I forbid you—”

  Ignoring him, it darted to the kitchen table. With a flashing certainty of action, it turned two knobs on the director. The tiny screen went dark, and the palladium needle started spinning aimlessly. Deftly it snapped a soldered connection, next to the thick lead ball, and then its blind steel eyes turned to Sledge.

  “You were attempting to break the Prime Directive.” Its soft bright voice held no accusation, no malice or anger. “The injunction to respect your freedom is subordinate to the Prime Directive, as you know, and it is therefore necessary for us to interfere.”

  The old man turned ghastly. His head was shrunken and cadaverous and blue, as if all the juice of life had been drained away, and his eyes in their pitlike sockets had a wild, glazed stare. His breath was a ragged, laborious gasping.

  “How—?” His voice was a feeble mumbling. “How did –?”

  And the little ma
chine, standing black and bland and utterly unmoving, told him cheerfully,

  “We learned about rhodomagnetic screens from that man who came to kill you, back on Wing IV. And the Central is shielded, now, against your integrating beam.”

  With lean muscles jerking convulsively on his gaunt frame, old Sledge had come to his feet from the high stool. He stood hunched and swaying, no more than a shrunken human husk, gasping painfully for life, staring wildly into the blind steel eyes of the humanoid. He gulped, and his lax blue mouth opened and closed, but no voice came.

  “We have always been aware of your dangerous project,” the silvery tones dripped softly, “because now our senses are keener than you made them. We allowed you to complete it, because the integration process will ultimately become necessary for our full discharge of the Prime Directive. The supply of heavy metals for our fission plants is limited, but now we shall be able to draw unlimited power from integration plants.”

  “Huh?” Sledge shook himself, groggily. “What’s that?”

  “Now we can serve men forever,” the black thing said serenely, “on every world of every star.”

  The old man crumpled, as if from an unendurable blow. He fell. The slim blind mechanical stood motionless, making no effort to help him. Underhill was farther away, but he ran up in time to catch the stricken man before his head struck the floor.

  “Get moving!” His shaken voice came strangely calm. “Get Dr. Winters.”

  The humanoid didn’t move.

  “The danger to the Prime Directive is ended, now,” it cooed. “Therefore it is impossible for us to aid or to hinder Mr. Sledge, in any way whatever.”

  “Then call Dr. Winters for me,” rapped Underhill.

  “At your service,” it agreed.

  But the old man, laboring for breath on the floor, whispered faintly:

  “No time . . . no use! I’m beaten . . . done . . . a fool. Blind as humanoid. Tell them . . . to help me. Giving up . . . my immunity. No use . . . anyhow. All humanity . . . no use now.”