“Yes,” agreed X-120, “it is spring. We will forget. Let us go toward the river. It was always peaceful and beautiful there.”
L-1716 was puzzled. “What peace and beauty?” he asked. “They are but words that men taught us. I have never known them. But perhaps you have. You were always different.”
“I do not know what peace and beauty are, but when I think of them I am reminded of the river and of—” X-120 stopped suddenly, careful that he might not give away a secret he had kept so long.
“Very well,” agreed L-1716, “we will go to the river. I know a meadow there where the sun always seemed warmer.”
~ * ~
The two machines, each over twelve feet high, lumbered down the almost obliterated street. As they pushed their way over the debris and undergrowth that had settled about the ruins, they came upon many rusted skeletons of things that had once been like themselves. And toward the outskirts of the city they crossed over an immense scrap heap where thousands of the shattered and rusted bodies lay.
“We used to bring them here after—” said L-1716. “But the last centuries we have left them where they have fallen. I have been envying those who wintered in the jade tower.” His metallic voice hinted of sadness.
They came at last to an open space in the trees. Farther they went and stood at the edge of a bluff overlooking a gorge and a swirling river below. Several bridges had once been there but only traces remained.
“I think I will go down to the river’s edge,” offered X-120.
“Go ahead. I will stay here. The way is too steep for me.”
So X-120 clambered down a half-obliterated roadway alone. He stood at last by the rushing waters. Here, he thought, was something that changed the least. Here was the only hint of permanence in all the world. But even it changed. Soon the melting snow would be gone and the waters would dwindle to a mere trickle. He turned about and looked at the steep side of the gorge. Except for the single place where the old roadbed crept down, the sides rose sheer, their crests framed against the blue sky. These cliffs, too, were lasting.
Even in spring the cliffs and river seemed lonely and desolate. Men had not bothered to teach X-120 much of religion or philosophy. Yet somewhere in the combination of cells in his brain was a thought which kept telling him that he and his kind were suffering for their sins and for the sins of men before them.
And perhaps the thought was true. Certainly, men had never conquered their age-old stupidity, though science had bowed before them. Countless wars had taken more from men than science had given them. X-120 and his kind were the culmination of this primal killer instinct.
In the haste of a war-pressed emergency man had not taken the time to refine his last creation, or to calculate its result. And with that misstep man had played his last card on the worn gaming table of earth. That built-in urge to kill men in yellow uniforms had changed, ever so slightly, to an urge to kill—men.
Now there were only X-120, his two crippled comrades, the heaps of rusted steel, and the leaning, crumbling towers.
He followed the river for several miles until the steep sides lessened. Then he clambered out, and wandered through groves of gnarled trees. He did not wish to go back to L-1716, not just yet. The maimed robot was always sad. The rust was eating into him, too. Soon he would be like G-3a. Soon the two of them would be gone. Then he would be the last. An icy surge of fear stole over him. He did not want to be left alone.
~ * ~
He lumbered onward. A few birds were stirring. Suddenly, almost at his feet, a rabbit darted from the bushes. X-120’s long jointed arms swung swiftly. The tiny animal lay crushed upon the ground. Instinctively he stamped upon it, leaving only a bloody trace upon the new grass.
Then remorse and shame stole over him. He went on silently. Somehow the luster of the day had faded for him. He did not want to kill. Always he was ashamed, after the deed was done. And the age-old question went once more through the steel meshes of his mind: Why had he been made to kill?
He went on and on, and out of long habit he went furtively. Soon he came to an ivy-covered wall. Beyond this were the ruins of a great stone house. He stopped at whal had once been a garden. Near a broken fountain he found what he had been seeking, a little marble statue of a child weathered and discolored. Here, unknown to his companions he had been coming for years upon countless years. There was something about this little sculpturing that had fascinates him. And he had been half ashamed of his fascination.
He could not have explained his feelings, but there was something about the statue that made him think of all the things that men had possessed. It reminded him of all the qualities that were so far beyond his kind. He stood looking at the statue for long. It possessed an ethereal quality that still defied time. It made him think of the river and of the overhanging cliffs. Some long-dead artist almost came to life before his quartz eyes.
He retreated to a nearby brook and came back with a huge ball of clay. This in spite of the century-old admonitions that all robots should avoid the damp. For many years he had been trying to duplicate the little statue. Now, once more, he set about his appointed task. But his shearlike claws had been made for only one thing, death. He worked clumsily. Toward sundown he abandoned the shapeless mass that he had fashioned and returned to the ruins.
Near the shattered hall he met L-1716. At the entrance they called to G-3a, telling him of the day’s adventures. But no answer came. Together they went in. G-3a was sprawled upon the floor. The rust had conquered.
~ * ~
The elusive spring had changed into even a more furtive summer. The two robots were coming back to their hall on an afternoon which had been beautiful and quiet. L-1716 moved more slowly now. His broken cables trailed behind him, making a rustling sound in the dried leaves that had fallen.
Two of the cables had become entangled. Unnoticed, they caught in the branches of a fallen tree. Suddenly L-1716 was whirled about. He sagged to his knees. X-120 removed the cables from the tree. But L-1716 did not get up. “A wrench,” he said brokenly; “something is wrong.”
A thin tendril of smoke curled up from his side. Slowly he crumpled. From within him came a whirring sound that ended in a sharp snap. Tiny flames burst through his metal sides. L-1716 fell forward.
And X-120 stood over him and begged, “Please, old friend, don’t leave me now.” It was the first time that the onlooking hills had seen any emotion in centuries.
~ * ~
A few flakes of snow were falling through the air. The sky looked gray and low. A pair of crows were going home, their raucous cries troubling an otherwise dead world.
X-120 moved slowly. All that day he had felt strange. He found himself straying from the trail. He could only move now by going in a series of arcs. Something was wrong within him. He should be back in the hall, he knew, and not out in this dangerous moisture. But he was troubled, and all day he had wandered, while the snowflakes had fallen intermittently about him.
On he went through the gray, chill day. On and on until he came to crumbling wall, covered with withered ivy. Over this he went into a ruined garden, and paused at a broken fountain, before an old and blackened statue.
Long he stood, looking down at the carving of a little child, a statue that men had made so long before. Then his metal arm swung through the air. The marble shivered into a hundred fragments.
Slowly he turned about and retraced his steps. The cold sun was sinking, leaving a faint amethyst stain in the west. He must get back to the hall. Mustn’t stay out in the wet, he thought.
But something was wrong. He caught himself straying from the path, floundering in circles. The light was paling, although his eyes had been fashioned for both day and night.
Where was he? He realized with a start that he was lying on the ground. He must get back to the hall. He struggled, but no movement came. Then, slowly, the light faded and flickered out.
And the snow fell, slowly and silently, until only a white mound
showed where X-120 had been.
<
~ * ~
ROBOTS RETURN
by Robert Moore Williams
A
S though sustained by the strength of a dream, the ship floated gracefully, easily, a bare hundred feet above the surface of the planet. Overhead, slightly more than ninety million miles away, a sullen sun retreated down the dark blue sky. Its long rays fretted across the planet, washed from the low, brown hills, glinted from the jumbled mounds in the center of the valley.
The ship turned, slanted down toward the mounds, rose over them, circled, found a spot where the litter was nearly level and snuggled down to rest as though returning home after weary years spent between the stars.
Hissing from the pressure of air rushing inward, a forward lock opened.
Nine stood in the lock, staring from never-blinking eyes across the landscape—a fixed, sombre gaze. Hungrily, his eyes pried among the jumbled masonry, the great blocks of white stone stained a dirty brown in places, the piles of red clay in which grass was reluctantly growing. Five, perhaps ten miles around, the piles circled, then gradually leveled off toward the low brown hills.
Behind him a voice whispered, asking a question.
“It is the same as all the others,” his answer went, though the grim line of the mouth did not move. “Silence, and the wreckage of a mighty city. But nothing lives here now. The inhabitants are gone.”
For a second there was silence, and then a third voice whispered. “Just as I said. We are only wasting time here. It is true that once some kind of a race lived on this planet—but certainly they were never intelligent enough to have been our ancestors.”
Nine, in the lock, sighed softly. “Seven, you must remember that we have not made a complete investigation. You must also remember that we have absolutely no knowledge of our ancestor—even to whether or not they actually existed. Our records are complete for eight thousand years, but they do not go back beyond the time when the Original Five awaked, finding themselves lying on the edge of the sea, with no knowledge of how they came to be there. Perhaps they were a special creation, for they possessed great intelligence, speedily adapting the planet to their needs, forging and constructing others to help them. Perhaps they had come there, in a ship that had sunk in the sea, from some other planet. But we have never been able to solve the problem.”
Eight, silent after his first question, pressed forward, stared over Nine’s shoulder.
“I am perfectly familiar with the history of our race.” The edge of Seven’s thinking was clear over the radio beam. “The point I make is that the little life we have seen on this planet— and little enough we have seen—has been organic, a mess of chemicals. Animals, eating each other, eating grass—Pah! I want no ancestors like that.”
Slowly, Eight shook his head, the ripple of interwoven metal strands winking in the light. As if he had not heard the bickering of Seven and Nine he spoke. “For a minute, as I stood here, it seemed to me that I had been on this spot before. The low hills circling a city-Only the city has changed, and over there”—he pointed toward the east—”it seems there should be a lake, or an inlet from the ocean. But no—no—I must be mistaken.” He paused, and the fixed gleam in his eyes held a touch of awe. “I spoke—I used the vocal apparatus-Now I wonder why I did that?”
“So do I,” Seven’s answer rasped. “You used the vocal apparatus when the radio beam is much better. I have never understood why we should equip ourselves with cumbersome apparatus for making and hearing sounds when we have a much better method of communication.”
“Because,” Eight answered. “Because we have always had them. The Original Five had them. I do not know why they had them, for they also had the radio beam. Perhaps they had a use for them, though what that use could have been—At any rate, we have retained them. Perhaps, some day, we will discover a use for them.”
“Bah!” Seven snorted. “You are one of those inexplicable dreamers. It seems that no matter how carefully we construct the brain substance, we always get a few freaks who are unwilling to face reality, who are not sufficient in themselves, but who hunger for some day that is past—a day that never had existence. I have no sympathy with you, nor any sympathy with the Council that sent us here on this wild exploration.”
“But,” Nine protested, “the Council could not ignore the evidence of the old star map. The Original Five had that map, but we have never understood it, probably never would have understood it if our newly perfected telescopes had not revealed this system to us—nine planets circling a sun, the third planet a strange double system. Obviously that map is somehow a link with our unknown past.”
“Nonsense. I am a realist. I face the future not the past.”
“But the future is built of material taken from the past, and how can we build securely when we do not know what our past has been? It is important to us to know whether we are descended from whatever gods there are, or whether we have evolved from some lower form. Come,” Nine spoke.
The cunningly twisted strands of metal writhed and Nine stepped lithely from the lock. Eight followed, and after them came Seven, still grumbling.
Three little metal men four and a half feet tall. Two legs, two arms, two eyes, a nose, a mouth—the last two organs almost valueless survivals. For they did not need food or oxygen. The power of the bursting atom supplied them with energy. Nor did they really need the legs, for their evolution during their eight thousand years had been rapid. Seven touched the ground, glowed slightly, rose into the air and drifted after his companions. Eight and Nine used their legs. Somehow, to Eight the feel of the ground was good.
They stood on a little hill. Eight’s eyes went around the horizon. The metal face did not shift or change, no flicker of emotion played over it. But in the myriad of cunning photo-cells that were the eyes, hungry lights appeared to reflect the thinking that went on in the brain substance behind.
“It’s larger—larger than it looked from the air,” Nine spoke, his vocal apparatus biting at the words, yet somehow reflecting the awe he felt.
“Yes,” Eight answered. “All this litter that we see, all these mounds—and some of them are hundreds of feet high—are all that is left of some mighty city. Miles and miles and miles around, it stretches. How much work must have gone into it? How long must it have taken in the building? Centuries, perhaps hundreds of centuries, some race lived here, dreamed here, and dreaming built of clay and stone and steel and glass. I wonder—if they COULD have been our ancestors, our unknown forebears?”
“Nonsense!” Seven blurted.
~ * ~
Eight stirred, his eyes glinting uneasily as he glanced at Seven. “Perhaps it is not nonsense. I have the feeling, have had it ever since we sighted this system from the void—nine little planets clustering around a mother sun—that this is—home.” His voice lingered over the word, caressed it.
“Home!” Seven echoed. “We have no meaning for the word. We are at home anywhere. And as for feeling, we have even less meaning for that word. Feeling is not logic,” he finished, as if that settled everything.
“Perhaps logic has no meaning for that word,” Eight retorted. “But remember that our minds are constructed according to the ancient pattern—and who knows that feeling was not a part of that pattern, a part that has come down to us?”
“I remember only that we are Robots. I do not know or care about our origin. Only the future has meaning, the future in which we shall tread the paths beyond the stars.”
“Robots!” Eight answered. “I even wonder where we got that name for ourselves.”
“It was the name the Original Five had for themselves, just as they had a language.”
“But why, among a myriad of possible sounds, should they have selected that one as their name?”
“Because-” Seven was suddenly silent. Eight felt the perturbed pulse of his thinking. Seven was trying to explain to himself why their name should be what it was. He was having a har
d time doing it. The answer, somehow, went beyond the bounds of logic. Or was there no answer? But that was not logical either. There had to be an answer, a reason. Seven stirred uneasily, eyed his companions. Abruptly he lowered himself to the ground, shutting off the power that enabled him to bend gravity, as if he wanted the feel of the ground under his feet. He followed Nine over the rubble, and he used his legs.
Eight said nothing.
“What do you suppose this race looked like?” Seven awkwardly voiced the question.
Eight, gazing at the ruins, voiced the question that had been on his mind. “What happened to them? Could it happen to us?”
Seven and Nine stared at him. Seven’s hand went to the heat gun swinging at his belt. Nine twisted his eyes away.
“It couldn’t happen to us,” Seven said flatly.
Robot and the Man - [Adventures in Science Fiction 04] Page 19
