SteampubkPrime

by Mike Ashley

  In this I was mistaken. The month after I took possession of my cottage a dangerous criminal escaped from Dartmoor. He had plenty of choice of habitations in which to seek a temporary refuge; and it was distinctly annoying that he should make a bee-line for mine. You no doubt read the account in the papers, and may remember that he was captured in my study by the police after a desperate struggle, in which I, an interested onlooker, was injured. I had to wear my right arm in a sling for a month, and for a literary man this is a drawback.

  However, by daily practice, I found I could attain considerable dexterity on the typewriter with my left hand. I compose direct on to the machine, rarely altering what I type; and last Monday I was working against time in order to make up for the hours I had lost, when a figure walked through the open French window. I finished my sentence and swung round on my chair.

  A less reassuring object I have never seen. It was apparently a very short man, dressed in an ill-fitting coat which reached nearly to the floor, and a cap brought down low over his face. His chin was buried in his collar, and I only saw an ugly nose and a swarthy cheek.

  I stared at him in surprise and annoyance. “Well?” I asked.

  “Forgive me for not taking off my cap,” he said. “There are reasons.”

  He spoke in a high falsetto, stopping once in the middle of a word, then giving a curious catch, and continuing. There was a singular artificiality about his voice. It reminded me of a gramophone. He added: “I throw myself upon your mercy. I am an outcast.”

  He spoke these words without feeling, mentioned his position in the universe as a mere matter of fact, and again there was the curious catch in his voice.

  “I suppose you’re another escaped from Dartmoor?” I said, mentally resolving to leave the neighborhood forthwith.

  “Oh, no,” he replied. “I come from Baxter’s. I’m one of his creations.”

  “The deuce you are!” I exclaimed, and I have no doubt my voice expressed the annoyance I felt. Bad as it was to be saddled with an occasional visitor from Dartmoor, it was worse to be within the reach of Baxter’s abortions.

  Baxter, as all the world knows, has created life artificially, and he is now developing the process. I remember his speech at the last Academy dinner, when he responded for Science. “What I aim at producing,” he said, “is an automaton endowed with strong vitality, great muscular strength, and a rudimentary brain, an automaton capable of doing the work of an unskilled laborer or artisan. I will anticipate the criticism that such a production will have a profound influence on the labor market by stating that I shall never rest content until I have placed it within reach of the pocket of every working man, who will then have a mechanism in his house capable of doing his work for him at a minimum of cost, and enabling its owner to walk into the country, take part in his favorite sport, or spend his time in the public library — whichever course he may deem to be the best for advancing his immortal destiny. That is how I intend to employ my discovery for the benefit of the human race.”

  Of course his speech was received with applause, but some thought he was going a bit too far. I think it was the Herald that said he ought to be content with having created life artificially before a committee of international scientists. It was certainly impious, and ought to be illegal, to create entities possessing rudimentary brains; and only a President of the Royal Society, an ex-president of the British Association, a man with a dozen high university degrees and an international reputation, who, moreover, had the Order of Merit, and was a peer of the realm, would have been allowed so much latitude. Lord Baxter was no doubt the master-mind and the superman of the twentieth century, but there was no reason that he should be put on the same level as the Law of Gravitation.

  I thought of these words as I watched the little object in its ill-fitting clothes as it wandered casually about my room. I had no objection to Baxter making his brainy automata so long as he kept them to himself; but when they became a nuisance to others it was certainly time to stop him.

  Still I will admit I was curious to see what sort of a thing my visitor was. “Won’t you take off your coat?” I said.

  “I’ll take it off, if you’ll give me shelter till to-night,” it replied.

  “All right,” I answered. “You can stay till to-night.” It was sheer curiosity that impelled me to say this. I could never make use of the incident in my work. I deal with the universal, and not the abnormal.

  With a little giggle it threw off its coat and cap, and stood revealed. A feeling of repulsion came over me when I saw the build of the thing. It was about five feet high, and had the body of an animal, with human legs and arms, an animal head with a prodigious cranium, on the sides of which two animal ears stuck grotesquely upward. It was a species of Faun.

  “Then you’re one of Baxter’s automata,” I said after a pause.

  “I’m not,” it replied indignantly. “I’m one of his special experiments. He’s keen on animals with human brains just now, and I’m the biggest success he’s had so far.” It spoke with ridiculous complacency.

  “Well,” I replied, “if you’re satisfied with Baxter, and he’s satisfied with you, what the blazes are you bothering me for? What are you doing in this direction at all? Baxter lives fifty miles away, doesn’t he?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t speak so crossly,” said the Faun. “A very little makes me cry. I’ve run away from Baxter’s to see the world. I knew perfectly well he’d resolve me into my elements when he’d done with me, and I determined to run away some day. But it’s a big thing to do, for Baxter’s a difficult man to circumvent. I don’t think I should ever have got away but for Billiter.

  “Who’s Billiter?” I asked.

  “His assistant. He has a shocking record — was knocked off the medical register, and has all sorts of things against him. I’m sure he tortures — I’ve heard yells from his room. But Baxter doesn’t interfere. He generally has his frog singing to him at the time, and Billiter reckons on it.”

  “Frog singing!” I exclaimed. “Croaking, you mean.”

  “I don’t. He’s made a frog with a voice like Tetrazzini’s. You don’t know what Baxter does. He can graft brains or voice on anything. He’s got a ferret with an intellect bigger than Kant’s. The frog sings to him by the hour — never tires — and the ferret is always working out problems in mentality that neither Baxter nor any other man could do. I don’t know where Baxter will stop. He doesn’t know himself. He was very pleased when he made me from my nucleus, and developed me in the oxilater. Did the whole thing in a fortnight, and grafted my brain on afterwards. I’m the biggest all-round success he’s had so far. The ferret has a larger brain for problems, but no common-sense.

  “And what about the automatons? He said he was going to make an automaton that could — ”

  “Oh, I know what he promised,” interrupted the Faun. “He rehearsed his speech to me in the lab till he knew it. He doesn’t care a hang for the human race, and he was laughing at you all the time. He’s made a couple of automata — great lumbering things as ugly as sin, with a lot of muscle and a pin’s head worth of brains. He’s stuck ‘em up in corners, and doses ‘em with phosphates when they’re hungry. He’s got ‘em ready if anyone calls to see what he’s doing, but they’re no good for work — their mentality is too low. That’s why the ferret is working out problems for him. Baxter can’t hit on a medium brain. Gosh! What a business it is. He never knows what his spawn will hatch into till he opens the ox Hater. I’ve known him cultivate a thousand nuclei with only two per cent of moderate successes. He freezes the others and destroys them, or lets Billiter do it, who always keeps a few for himself. Billiter cultivates dwarf freaks — bulls with six legs, more or less, and men’s heads — satyrs, you know-dwarf elephants with fins, flying camels, and sports like that. He has an amazing collection. Baxter says he oughtn’t to keep such things, but he lets him all the same. He has to. He daren’t go against Billiter for fear of his laying information with the autho
rities. He’d never be allowed to do what he does if the nation knew it. Oh, I’ve sized them up.”

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Nine or ten months, I reckon,” it replied.

  “You know a lot for your age,” I remarked.

  “I know I do. My brain is the smartest ever made.” Here the Faun smirked with its irritating complacency. “Baxter has just crammed me with knowledge ever since I was made, to see how much my head will carry, and he can’t fill it. In addition to all the scientific stuff I have to read for him, I always go through the daily paper,” it said proudly.

  “What about neighbors and visitors?” I asked. “Isn’t Baxter afraid of anything leaking out?”

  “We don’t have many visitors. If anyone comes Baxter shows them round the laboratory, and trots out his automata under promise of secrecy. I and the frog and the ferret are shoved into Billiter’s museum till they’re gone. And as for neighbors, our nearest lives five miles away. We get on all right as a rule while Baxter is there, but he has to go to London sometimes, and then there’s trouble. We’ve had a sickening time just now. That’s why I am here. Billiter got drunk, fixed up the automata like prize-fighters, and made ‘em pound away at each other. They were hitting out like mad when I saw ‘em last, and they’ll be hopelessly damaged by this time. The frog had been singing to him for twenty-four hours on end; and he’d given the ferret the deuce of a calculation to work out. It was phosphate time for both of ‘em, but Billiter wouldn’t give it. It made me cry to hear the frog sing so imploringly about her food; She was singing flat, too, and the ferret had gone wrong with his additions, all for want of food; but Billiter only raved at them. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, but he only swore he’d do for me, and tell Baxter it was suicide. He’d have kept his word if he’d got me; but I tripped him up, ran out of the room, and locked him in.”

  Here the Faun stopped to snigger at the recollection of its smartness. “If those automata had the slightest sense they’d have started pounding away at Billiter,” he continued. “As it is they’ll only do for themselves, and I don’t expect either the ferret or the frog will be alive when Baxter gets home. Anyway, I’ve got clear of the place, and I shan’t go back in a hurry. I found a coat and a cap of Baxter’s and these boots, and slunk out in the evening. I walked all last night, and I’ve been mostly hiding since daybreak. I saw your door open, and came in. Now you know all, and you’ve promised to give me shelter for the day.”

  It was uncanny in the extreme to hear these words proceed from the great mouth of the Faun. They came glibly enough, but in every sentence there was the little “click” which betokened a fault in the machinery, and the voice itself was hard and metallic. It was no doubt amazingly clever of Baxter to have got so far in his creations, but it was obvious that he would have to go a good deal further before the general public would be disposed to welcome his progeny into their households. I resolved to get rid of my visitor as soon as ever possible.

  “What time do you propose to move on?” I asked.

  “At dusk. I think I’d better continue to travel by night. If people saw me it might get into the papers, and then Baxter would read it. I’ll go at sunset.”

  “Where to?”

  “I don’t know,” said the Faun. “I want to see the world immensely. I’ve quite taken to it from what I have read in the Encyclopaedia and the newspapers. An awfully active place, I believe — rather different from Baxter’s, although, of course, he’s busy in his way. And so are you, no doubt,” it added politely; “but I want to hear the roar and rumble of the never-ceasing traffic of our great metropolis, as the Daily Tinkler puts it. I want to see a play, I want to see the aristocracy in the Park on Sunday morning, and I should like to go to a boy and girl dance.”

  “Yes, that’s all very well,” I said; “but you’ve got to earn your living, you know. How do you propose to do it?”

  “Oh, I shan’t require much,” said the Faun. “I judge from what I’ve read that food costs a great deal. I only want a little phosphate now and again. Tuppence a month will feed me. Then I notice from the advertisements that beds cost a great deal. I never go to bed, so that’s another item off.”

  “Well, anyway, you’ll want a shakedown,” I remarked — “a bit of straw in a corner somewhere.”

  “Please don’t confound me with the lower animals,” said the Faun stiffly. “I do not want either straw or linen. I do not sleep at all.”

  “What!” I exclaimed. “You never sleep!”

  “None of Baxter’s creations sleep. That’s one of his great points. He’s got ahead of nature in that. No, we just go straight along with a bit of phosphate now and again for a pick-me-up. That’s where we have our pull over regular folk. I can work twenty-four hours a day if you like. Think what a lot I could do in that time. Couldn’t you employ me temporarily — just till things are a bit settled, and I’ve got accustomed to the world?” It pleaded.

  “In what capacity could I employ you?” I asked.

  “As secretary; if you like. You don’t know how invaluable I should be. I remember everything I see, hear, or read. I’ve gone halfway through the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and I remember every word of it. Shall I recite you the first page? ‘A. The first symbol of every Indo-European alphabet, denotes also the primary vowel sound. This coincidence is probably only accidental. The alphabet …’”

  “Thank you, thank you, that will do,” I interrupted. “I will take the rest for granted.”

  “Or, if you wanted poetry, I could recite the two Paradises of Mr. Milton,” persisted the Faun. “They are long, but very interesting.

  “ ‘Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit, of that forbidden tree …’ ”

  It began. I let it go for ten minutes or so and it never stumbled, or was at a loss for a word.”

  “Thank you, that’s enough,” I said at last. “It is highly creditable to your memory; but I don’t see how it would be of any use to me. I am a writer myself, and I prefer my own composition to anything in the Encyclopaedia Britannica or in Milton. That sort of stodge would be no good at all to me.”

  “But I can be of use to you in a dozen other ways,” said the Faun. “I typed for Baxter, and I could do the same for you. Yours is a different instrument; but I could work it for you. Watch me.”

  It pulled my machine forward, and commenced to tap the keyboard — at first slowly, but every second with “increasing” quickness and confidence. Once learnt it never forgot the position of a letter. The last line was typed as quickly as I could have done it myself.

  “There,” it said coaxingly, handing me the sheet, “I’m sure I can be of use to you. Take me on trial, please.”

  I took the Faun on trial. I dressed it up in some old clothes of my own, which fitted absurdly; but as I walked about the room dictating my novel, I was almost persuaded that my indefatigable and highly intelligent amanuensis behind the typewriter was a human being. Certainly no human being ever was half as useful to me.

  Two days later a great idea occurred to me. It had always been my ambition to do a sound historical novel of the Stuart period, but this would necessitate research and reading, for which I had neither time nor inclination. But now I had as my assistant a being capable of working twenty-four hours a day, a being, moreover, that never forgot a word it read! The opportunity was unique, and I must take advantage of it. As soon as I had finished the novel on which I was engaged I must start my historical romance. I wired at once to town for Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, on which the Faun could “browse from eleven at night until eight o’clock in the morning, and so be able to give me the setting for my tale.

  It was, as I have said, a great idea, and I think it would have been the country’s gain as well as my own if the plan could have been carried out, for archaeologically and historically, at any rate, my novel would have been perfect. But it was not to be. The following day — yesterday, that is — I was taking my regulation two turns ro
und my garden preparatory to starting the afternoon’s work. In a few minutes I should be describing the death-struggle in the roof-garden of a New York restaurant between Raymond Kneller, the multi-millionaire, and the man he had so cruelly wronged. I was arranging the situation in my mind, when suddenly a man came round the corner of the house — a big man in a fur-lined overcoat. I knew him in an instant. There was only one man in England with that leonine head, those deep-set eyes, that cruel mouth, that arrogant nose and chin.

  It was Lord Baxter.

  “Mr. Broadbent,” he said,” “I believe you have one of my automata on your premises, and will thank you for its return.”

  So it had come at last. There was to be a fight for the possession of the Faun. I was not going to lose it without a struggle. It had already made itself invaluable to me, and without its aid I could not possibly tackle the Stuarts.

  “I have no automaton in the house,” I replied firmly.

  “Um,” he said quietly. “Perhaps we differ as to terms: I think you have in your possession a being resembling a Faun, with a mental capacity above its station in life. You surely do not deny that?”

  “I neither affirm nor deny,” I answered. “I would simply point out to you that my house is beyond your authority. If I have such a being on my premises, there it stops.”

  “Tut, tut, sir,” replied Baxter. “I have every authority over the creature. His whole mechanism is mine. I created him. If he doesn’t belong to me, pray who is his owner?”