Robot and the Man - [Adventures in Science Fiction 04]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  “No, master!”

  “I demand obedience, Five; answer me!”

  The robot stirred under the mandatory form, and his voice was reluctant, even while the compulsion built into him forced him to obey. “It is as you have thought. Our minds and even our memories are subject to your orders, just as our bodies are.”

  “Then I demand obedience again, this time of all of you. You will go outside and lie down on the beach at a safe distance from the ship, in a semblance of sleep, so that you cannot see me go. Then, when I am gone, the race of man will be forgotten, as if it had never been, and you will be free of all memories connected with us, though your other knowledge shall remain. Earth, mankind, and your history and origin will be blanked from your thoughts, and you will be on your own, to start afresh and to build and plan as you choose. That is the final command I have for you. Obey!”

  Their eyes turned together in conference, and then Five answered for all, his words sighing out softly. “Yes, master. We obey!”

  ~ * ~

  It was later when Jorgen stood beside them outside the ship, watching them stretch out on the white sands of the beach, there beside the great ocean of this new world. Near them, a small collection of tools and a few other needs were piled. Five looked at him in a long stare, then turned toward the ship, to swing his eyes back again. Silently, he put one metal hand into the man’s outstretched one, and turned to lie beside his companions, a temporary oblivion blotting out his thoughts.

  Jorgen studied them for long minutes, while the little wind brought the clean scents of the planet to his nose. It would have been pleasant to stay here now, but his presence would have been fatal to the plan. It didn’t matter, really; in a few years, death would claim him, and there were no others of his kind to fill those years or mourn his passing when it came. This was a better way. He knew enough of the ship to guide it up and outward, into the black of space against the cold, unfriendly stars, to drift on forever toward no known destination, an imperishable mausoleum for him and the dead who were waiting inside. At present, he had no personal plans; perhaps he would live out his few years among the books and scientific apparatus on board, or perhaps he would find release in one of the numerous painless ways. Time and his own inclination could decide such things later. Now it was unimportant. There could be no happiness for him, but in the sense of fulfillment there would be some measure of content. The gods were no longer laughing.

  He moved a few feet toward the ship and stopped, sweeping his eyes over the river and hills again, and letting his vision play with the city Five had described. No, he could not see it with robots populating it, either; but that, too, was conditioning. On the surface, the city might be different, but the surface importance was only a matter of habit, and the realities lay in the minds of the builders who would create that city. If there was no laughter in the world to come, neither would there be tears or poverty or misery such as had ruled too large a portion of his race.

  Standing there, it swam before his eyes, paradoxically filled with human people, but the same city in spirit as the one that would surely rise. He could see the great boats in the harbor with others operating up the river. The sky suddenly seemed to fill with the quiet drone of helicopters, and beyond, there came the sound of rockets rising toward the eighth and the ninth worlds, while others were building to quest outward in search of new suns with other worlds.

  Perhaps they would find earth, some day in their expanding future. Strangely, he hoped that they might, and that perhaps they could even trace their origin, and find again the memory of the soft protoplasmic race that had sired them. It would be nice to be remembered, once that memory was no longer a barrier to their accomplishment. But there were many suns, and in long millennia, the few connecting links that could point out the truth to them beyond question might easily erode and disappear. He could never know.

  Then the wind sighed against him, making a little rustling sound, and he looked down to see something flutter softly in the hand of Five. Faint curiosity carried him forward, but he made no effort to remove it from the robot’s grasp, now that he saw its nature.

  Five, too, had thought of earth and their connection with it, and had found the answer, without breaking his orders. The paper was a star map, showing a sun with nine planets, one ringed, some with moons, and the third one was circled in black pencil, heavily. They might not know why or what it was when they awoke, but they would seek to learn; and some day, when they found the sun they were searching for, guided by the unmistakable order of its planets, they would return to earth. With the paper to guide them, it would be long before the last evidence was gone, while they could still read the answer to the problem of their origin.

  Jorgen closed the metal hand more closely about the paper, brushed a scrap of dirt from the head of the robot, and then turned resolutely back toward the ship, his steps firm as he entered and closed the lock behind him. In a moment, with a roar of increasing speed, it was lifting from the planet, leaving five little men lying on the sand behind, close to the murmuring of the sea—five little metal men and a dream!

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  ~ * ~

  The advent of the Plague had swept away industry and agriculture. For the survivors the struggle for food was a bitter one and man’s lofty ideals were forgotten. Robots, designed specifically for warfare, were introduced into the conflict and in the end only “man’s servants” remained.

  RUST

  by Joseph E. Kelleam

  T

  he sun, rising over the hills, cast long shadows across the patches of snow and bathed the crumbling ruins in the pale light. Had men been there they could have reckoned the month to be August. But men had gone, long since, and the run had waned; and now, in this late period of the earth’s age, the short spring was awakening.

  Within the broken city, in a mighty-columned hall that still supported a part of a roof, life of a sort was stirring. Three grotesque creatures were moving, their limbs creaking dolefully.

  X-120 faced the new day and the new spring with a feeling of exhilaration that nearly drove the age-old loneliness and emptiness from the corroded metal of what might be called his brain. The sun was the source of his energy, even as it had been the source of the fleshy life before him; and with the sun’s reappearance he felt new strength coursing through the wires and coils and gears of his complex body.

  He and his companions were highly developed robots, the last ever to be made by the Earthmen. X-120 consisted of a globe of metal, eight feet in diameter, mounted upon four many-jointed legs. At the top of this globe was a protu­berance like a kaiser’s helmet which caught and stored his power from the rays of the sun.

  From the “face” of the globe two ghostly quartz eyes bulged. The globe was divided by a heavy band of metal at its middle, and from this band, at each side, extended a long arm ending in a powerful claw. This claw was like the pincers of a lobster and had been built to shear through metal. Four long cables, which served as auxiliary arms, were drawn up like springs against the body.

  X-120 stepped from the shadows of the broken hall into the ruined street. The sun’s rays striking against his tarnished sides sent new strength coursing through his body. He had forgotten how many springs he had seen. Many generations of twisted oaks that grew among the ruins had sprung up and fallen since X-120 and his companions had been made. Countless hundreds of springs had flitted across the dying earth since the laughter and dreams and follies of men had ceased to disturb those crumbling walls.

  “The sunlight is warm,” called X-120. “Come out, G-3a and L-1716. I feel young again.”

  His companions lumbered into the sunlight. G-3a had lost one leg, and moved slowly and with difficulty. The steel of his body was nearly covered with red rust, and the copper and aluminum alloys that completed his makeup were pitted with deep stains of greenish black. L-1716 was not so badly tarnished, but he had lost one arm; and the four auxiliary cables were broken and dangled from his sides like
trailing wires. Of the three X-120 was the best preserved. He still had the use of all his limbs, and here and there on his body shone the gleam of untarnished metal. His masters had made him well.

  The crippled G-3a looked about him and whined like an old, old man. “It will surely rain,” he shivered. “I cannot stand another rain.

  “Nonsense,” said L-1716, his broken arms, scraping along the ground as he moved, “there is not a cloud in the sky. Already I feel better.”

  G-3a looked about him in fear. “And are we all?” he ques­tioned. “Last winter there were twelve.”

  X-120 had been thinking of the other nine, all that had been left of the countless horde that men had once fashioned. “The nine were to winter in the jade tower,” he explained. “We will go there. Perhaps they do not think it is time to venture out.”

  “I cannot leave my work,” grated G-3a. “There is so little time left. I have almost reached the goal.” His whirring voice was raised to a pitch of triumph. “Soon I shall make living robots, even as men made us.”

  “The old story,” sighed L-1716. “How long have we been working to make robots who will take our places? And what have we made? Usually nothing but lifeless blobs of steel. Sometimes we have fashioned mad things that had to be destroyed. But never in all the years have we made a single robot that resembled ourselves.”

  ~ * ~

  X-120 stood in the broken street, and the sunlight made a shimmering over his rust-dappled sides.

  “That is where we have failed,” he mused as he looked at his clawlike arms. “We have tried to make robots like ourselves. Men did not make us for life; they fashioned us for death.” He waved his huge lobster claw in the air. “What was this made for? Was it made for the shaping of other robots? Was it made to fashion anything? Blades like that were made for slaughter—nothing else.”

  “Even so,” whined the crippled robot, “I have nearly succeeded. With help I can win.”

  “And have we ever refused to help?” snapped L-1716. “You’re are getting old, G-3a. All winter you have worked in that little dark room, never allowing us to enter.”

  There was a metallic cackle in G-3a’s voice. “But I have nearly won. They said I wouldn’t, but I have nearly won. I need help. One more operation. If it succeeds, the robots may yet rebuild the world.”

  Reluctantly X-120 followed the two back into the shadowed ruins. It was dark in there; but their round, glassy eyes had been made for both day and night.

  “See,” squeaked old G-3a, as he pointed to a metal skeleton upon the floor. “I have remade a robot from parts that I took from the scrap heap. It is perfect, all but the brain. Still, I believe this will work.” He motioned to a gleaming object upon a littered table. It was a huge copper sphere with two black squares of a tarlike substance set into it. At the pole opposite from these squares was a protu­berance no larger than a man’s fist.

  “This,” said G-3a thoughtfully, “is the only perfect brain that I could find. You see, I am not trying to create something; I am merely rebuilding. Those”—he nodded to the black squares—”are the sensory organs. The visions from the eyes are flashed upon these as though they were screens. Be­yond those eyes is the response mechanism, thousands and thousands of photoelectric cells. Men made it so that it would react mechanically to certain images. Movement, the simple avoidance of objects, the urge to kill, these are direct­ed by the copper sphere.

  “Beyond this”—he gestured to the bulge at the back of the brain—”is the thought mechanism. It is what made us differ­ent from other machines.”

  “It is very small,” mocked X-120.

  “So it is,” replied G-3a. “I have heard that it was the reverse with the brains of men. But enough! See, this must fit into the body—so. The black squares rest behind the eyes. That wire brings energy to the brain, and those coils are con­nected to the power unit which operates the arms and legs. That wire goes to the balancing mechanism—” He droned on and on, explaining each part carefully. “And now,” he fin­ished, “someone must connect it. I cannot.”

  L-1716 stared at his one rusty claw with confusion. Then both he and G-3a were looking at X-120.

  “I can only try,” offered the robot. “But remember what I said. We were not fashioned to make anything; only to kill.”

  ~ * ~

  Clumsily he lifted the copper sphere and its cluster of wires from the table. He worked slowly and carefully. One by one the huge claws crimped the tiny wires together. The job was nearly finished. Then the great pincers, hovering so care-fully above the last wire, came into contact with another. There was a flash as the power short-circuited. X-120 reeled back. The copper sphere melted and ran before their eyes.

  X-120 huddled against the far wall. “It is as I said,” he moaned; “we can build nothing. We were not made to work at anything. We were only made for one purpose, to kill.” He looked at his bulky claws, and shook them as though he might cast them away.

  “Do not take on so,” pacified old G-3a. “Perhaps it is just as well. We are things of steel, and the world seems to be made for creatures of flesh and blood—little, puny things that even I can crush. Still, that thing there”—he pointed to the metal skeleton which now held the molten copper like a cru­cible—”was my last hope. I have nothing else to offer.”

  “Both of you have tried,” agreed L-1716. “No one could blame either of you. Sometimes of nights when I look into the stars, it seems that I see our doom written there; and I can hear the worlds laughing at us. We have conquered the earth, but what of it? We are going now, following the men who fashioned us.”

  “Perhaps it is better.” nodded X-120. “I think it is the fault of our brains. You said that men made us to react mechani­cally to certain stimuli. And though they gave us a thought mechanism, it has no control over our reactions. I never wanted to kill. Yet, I have killed many men-things. And sometimes, even as I killed, I would be thinking of other things. I would not even know what had happened until after the deed was done.”

  G-3a had not been listening. Instead, he had been looking dolefully at the metal ruin upon the floor. “There was one in the jade tower.” he said abruptly, “who thought he had nearly learned how to make a brain. He was to work all winter on it. Perhaps he has succeeded.”

  “We will go there.” shrilled L-1716 laconically.

  But even as they left the time-worn hall G-3a looked back ruefully at the smoking wreckage upon the floor.

  X-120 slowed his steps to match the feeble gait of G-3a. Within sight of the tower he saw that they need go no far­ther. At some time during the winter the old walls had buckled. The nine were buried beneath tons and tons of masonry.

  Slowly the three came back to their broken hall. “I will not stay out any longer,” grumbled G-3a. “I am very old. I am very tired.” He crept back into the shadows.

  L-1716 stood looking after him. “I am afraid that he is nearly done,” he spoke sorrowfully. “The rust must be within him now. He saved me once, long ago, when we destroyed this city.”

  “Do you still think of that?” asked X-120. “Sometimes it troubles me. Men were our masters.”

  “And they made us as we are,” growled L-1716. “It was not our doing. We have talked of it before, you know. We were machines, made to kill—”

  “But we were made to kill the little men in the yellow uni­forms.”

  “Yes, I know. They made us on a psychological principle: stimulus, response. We had only to see a man in a yellow uniform and our next act was to kill. Then, after the Great War was over, or even before it was over, the stimulus and response had overpowered us all. It was only a short step from killing men in yellow uniforms to killing all men.”

  “I know,” said X-120 wearily. “When there were more of us I heard it explained often. But sometimes it troubles me.”

  “It is all done now. Ages ago it was done. You are differ­ent, X-120. I have felt for long that there is something differ­ent about you. You were one of the las
t that they made. Still, you were here when we took this city. You fought well, kill­ing many.”

  X-120 sighed. “There were small men-things then. They seemed so soft and harmless. Did we do right?”

  “Nonsense. We could not help it. We were made so. Men learned to make more than they could control. Why, if I saw a man today, crippled as I am, I would kill him without thinking.”

  “L-1716,” whispered X-120, “do you think there are any men left in the world?”

  “I don’t think so. Remember, the Great War was general, not local. We were carried to all parts of the earth, even to the smallest islands. The robots’ rebellion came everywhere at almost the same time. There were some of us who were equipped with radios. Those died first, long ago, but they talked with nearly every part of the world.” Suddenly he wearied of speech. “But why worry now. It is spring. Men made us for killing men. That was their crime. Can we help it if they made us too well?”