The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  Narodny spoke, and in his voice there was a human indifference and sureness that chilled them, yet gave them courage. He said: “We mean you no harm. You cannot harm us. We have long been withdrawn from men. What happens on the surface of Earth means nothing to us. What may happen beneath the surface means much. Whatever it is you have named the Wrongness of Space has already annoyed me. I perceive that he can do more than annoy. I gather that the robots in one way or another are on his side. You are against him. Therefore, our first step must be to help you against the robots. Place me in possession of all facts. Be brief, for we cannot maintain our position here for more than half an hour without discomfort.”

  Martin said: “Whoever you are, wherever you are, we trust you. Here is the story….”

  For fifteen minutes Narodny and the Chinese listened to their tale of struggle against the robots, of their escape and of the blasting of Copernicus in the effort of the Wrongness of Space to prevent their return.

  Narodny said: “Enough. Now I understand. How long can you remain in space? I mean—what are your margins of power and of food?”

  Martin answered: “Six days.”

  Narodny said: “Ample time for success—or failure. Remain aloft for that time, then descend to where you started—”

  Suddenly he smiled: “I care nothing for mankind—yet I would not harm them, willingly. And it has occurred to me that I owe them, after all, a great debt. Except for them—I would not be. Also, it occurs to me that the robots have never produced a poet, a musician, an artist—” He laughed: “But it is in my mind that they are capable of one great art at least! We shall see.”

  The oval was abruptly empty; then it too was gone. Bartholomew said: “Call the others. I am for obeying. But they must know.” And when the others had heard, they too voted to obey, and the spaceship, course changed, began to circle, as slowly as it could, the Earth.

  Down in the chamber of the screens, Narodny laughed and laughed again. He said: “Lao, is it that we have advanced so in these few years? Or that men have retrogressed? No, it is this curse of mechanization that destroys imagination. For look you, how easy is this problem of the robots. They began as man-made machines. Mathematical, soulless, insensible to any emotion. So was primal matter, of which all on Earth are made, rock and water, tree and grass, metal, animal, fish, worm, and men. But somewhere, somehow, something was added to this primal matter, combined with it—used it. It was what we call life. And life is consciousness. And therefore largely emotion. Life established its rhythm—and its rhythm being different in rock and crystal, metal, fish, and so on, and man, we have these varying things.

  “Well, it seems that life has begun to establish its rhythm in the robots. Consciousness has touched them. The proof? They have established the idea of common identity—group consciousness. That in itself involves emotion. But they have gone further. They have attained the instinct of self-preservation. And that, my wise friend, connotes fear—fear of extinction. And fear connotes anger, hatred, arrogance—and many other things. The robots, in short, have become emotional to a degree. And therefore vulnerable to whatever may amplify and control their emotions. They are no longer mechanisms.

  “So, Lao, I have in mind an experiment that will provide me study and amusement through many years. Originally, the robots are the children of mathematics. I ask—to what is mathematics most closely related. I answer—to rhythm—to sound—to sounds which will raise to the nth degree the rhythms to which they will respond. Both mathematically and emotionally.”

  Lao said: “The sonic sequences?”

  Narodny answered: “Exactly. But we must have a few with which to experiment. To do that means to dissolve the upper gate. But that is nothing. Tell Maringy and Euphrosyne to do it. Net a ship and bring it here. Bring it down gently. You will have to kill the men in it, of course, but do it mercifully. Then let them bring me the robots. Use the green flame on one or two—the rest will follow, I’ll warrant you.”

  The hill behind where the old house had stood trembled. A circle of pale green light gleamed on its breast. It dimmed, where it had been was the black mouth of a tunnel. An airship, half-rocket, half-winged, making its way to New York, abruptly dropped, circled, and streaked back. It fell gently like a moth, close to the yawning mouth of the tunnel.

  Its door opened, and out came two men, pilots, cursing. There was a little sigh from the tunnel’s mouth and a silvery misty cloud sped from it, over the pilots and straight through the opened door. The pilots staggered and crumpled to the ground. In the airship half a dozen other men slumped to the floor, smiled, and died.

  There were a full score robots in the ship. They stood, looking at the dead men and at each other. Out of the tunnel came two figures swathed in metallic glimmering robes. They entered the ship. One said: “Robots, assemble.”

  The metal men stood, motionless. Then one sent out a shrill call. From all parts of the ship the metal men moved. They gathered behind the one who had sent the call. They stood behind him, waiting.

  In the hand of one of those who had come from the tunnel was what might have been an antique flashlight. From it sped a thin green flame. It struck the foremost robot on the head, sliced down from the head to the base of the trunk. Another flash, and the green flame cut him from side to side. He fell, sliced by that flame into four parts. The four parts lay, inert as their metal, upon the floor of the compartment.

  One of the shrouded figures said: “Do you want further demonstration—or will you follow us?”

  The robots put heads together; whispered. Then one said: “We will follow.”

  They marched into the tunnel, the robots making no resistance nor effort to escape. Again there was the sighing, and the rocks closed the tunnel mouth. They came to a place whose floor sank with them until it had reached the caverns. The machine-men still went docilely. Was it because of curiosity mixed with disdain for these men whose bodies could be broken so easily by one blow of the metal appendages that served them for arms? Perhaps.

  They came to the cavern where Narodny and the others awaited them. Marinoff led them in and halted them. These were the robots used in the flying ships—their heads cylindrical, four arm appendages, legs triple jointed, torsos slender. The robots, it should be understood, were differentiated in shape according to their occupations. Narodny said:

  “Welcome, robots. Who is your leader?”

  One answered: “We have no leaders. We act as one.”

  Narodny laughed: “Yet by speaking for them you have shown yourself leader. Step closer. Do not fear—yet.”

  The robot said: “We feel no fear. Why should we? Even if you should destroy us who are here, you cannot destroy the billions of us outside. Nor can you breed fast enough, become men soon enough, to cope with us who enter into life strong and complete from the beginning.”

  He flicked an appendage toward Narodny and there was contempt in the gesture. But before he could draw it back a bracelet of green flame circled it at the shoulder. It had darted like a thrown loop from something in Narodny’s hand. The robot’s arm dropped clanging to the floor, cleanly severed. The robot stared at it unbelievingly, threw forward his other three arms to pick it up. Again the green flame encircled them, encircled also his legs above the second joints. The robot crumpled and pitched forward, crying in high-pitched shrill tones to the others.

  Swiftly the green flame played among them. Legless, armless, some decapitated, all the robots fell except two.

  “Two will be enough,” said Narodny. “But they will not need arms—only feet.”

  The flashing green bracelets encircled the appendages and excised them. The pair were marched away. The bodies of the others were taken apart, studied, and under Narodny’s direction curious experiments were made. Music filled the cavern, strange chords, unfamiliar progressions, shattering arpeggios, and immense vibrations of sound that could be felt but not heard by the human ear. And finally this last deep vibration burst into hearing as a vast drone, h
ummed up and up into a swift tingling tempest of crystalline brittle notes, and still ascending passed into shrill high pipings, and continued again unheard, as had the prelude to the droning. And thence it rushed back, the piping and the crystalline storm reversed, into the drone and the silence—then back and up.

  And the bodies of the broken robots began to quiver, to tremble, as though every atom within them were in ever increasing, rhythmic motion. Up rushed the music and down—again and again. It ended abruptly in midflight with one crashing note.

  The broken bodies ceased their quivering. Tiny star-shaped cracks appeared in their metal. Once more the note sounded and the cracks widened. The metal splintered.

  Narodny said: “Well, there is the frequency for the rhythm of our robots. The destructive unison. I hope for the sake of the world outside it is not also the rhythm of many of their buildings and bridges. But after all, in any war there must be casualties on both sides.”

  Lao said: “Earth will be an extraordinary spectacle for a few days.”

  Narodny said: “It’s going to be an extraordinarily uncomfortable Earth for a few days, and without doubt many will die and many more go mad. But is there any other way?”

  There was no answer. He said: “Bring in the two robots.”

  They brought them in.

  Narodny said: “Robots—were there ever any of you who could poetize?”

  They answered: “What is poetize?”

  Narodny laughed: “Never mind. Have you ever sung—made music—painted? Have you ever—dreamed?”

  One robot said with cold irony: “Dreamed? No—for we do not sleep. We leave all that to men. It is why we have conquered them.”

  Narodny said, almost gently: “Not yet, robot. Have you ever—danced? No? It is an art you are about to learn.”

  The unheard note began, droned up and through the tempest and away and back again. And up and down—and up and down, though not so loudly as before. And suddenly the feet of the robots began to move, to shuffle. Their leg joints bent; their bodies swayed. The note seemed to move now here and now there about the chamber, they always following it, grotesquely. Like huge metal marionettes, they followed it. The music ended in the crashing note. And it was as though every vibrating atom of the robot bodies had met some resistible obstruction. Their bodies quivered and from their voice mechanisms came a shriek that was a hideous blend of machine and life. Once more the drone, and once more and once more and again the abrupt stop. There was a brittle crackling all over the conical heads, all over the bodies. The star-shaped splinterings appeared. Once again the drone—but the two robots stood, unresponding. For through the complicated mechanisms which under their carapaces animated them were similar splinterings.

  The robots were dead!

  Narodny said: “By tomorrow we can amplify the sonar to make it effective in a three-thousand-mile circle. We will use the upper cavern, of course. Equally of course, it means we must take the ship out again. In three days, Marinoff, you should be able to cover the other continents. See to it that the ship is completely proof against the vibrations. To work. We must act quickly—before the robots can discover how to neutralize them.”

  —

  It was exactly at noon the next day that over all North America a deep unexplainable droning was heard. It seemed to come not only from deep within Earth, but from every side. It mounted rapidly through a tempest of tingling crystalline notes into a shrill piping and was gone…then back it rushed from piping to the drone…then up and out and down…again and again. And over all North America the hordes of robots stopped in whatever they were doing. Stopped…and then began to dance. They danced in the airships and scores of those ships crashed before the human crews could gain control. They danced by the thousands in the streets of the cities—in grotesque rigadoons, in bizarre sarabands, with shuffle and hop and jig the robots danced while the people fled in panic and hundreds of them were crushed and died in those panics. In the great factories, and in the tunnels of the lower cities, and in the mines—everywhere the sound was heard—and it was heard everywhere—the robots danced…to the piping of Narodny, the last great poet…the last great musician.

  And then came the crashing note—and over all the country the dance halted. And began again…and ceased…and began again…

  Until at last the streets, the lower tunnels of the lower levels, the mines, the factories, the homes, were littered with metal bodies shot through and through with star-shaped splinterings.

  In the cities the people cowered, not knowing what blow was to fall upon them…or milled about in fear-maddened crowds, and many more died….

  Then suddenly the dreadful droning, the shattering tempest, the intolerable high piping ended. And everywhere the people fell, sleeping among the dead robots, as though they never had been strung to the point of breaking, sapped of strength and abruptly relaxed.

  As though it had vanished, America was deaf to cables, to all communication beyond the gigantic circle of sound.

  But that midnight over all Europe the drone sounded and Europe’s robots began their dance of death…and when it had ended a strange and silent rocket ship that had hovered high above the stratosphere sped almost with the speed of light and hovered over Asia—and next day Africa heard the drone while the natives answered it with their tom-toms—then South America heard it and last of all far-off Australia…and everywhere terror trapped the peoples and panic and madness took their toll….

  Until of all that animate metal horde that had tethered Earth and humanity there were a few scant hundreds left—escaped from the death dance through some variant in their constitution. And, awakening from that swift sleep, all over Earth those who had feared and hated the robots and their slavery rose against those who had fostered the metal domination, and blasted the robot factories to dust.

  Again the hill above the caverns opened, the strange torpedo ship blinked into sight like a ghost, as silently as a ghost floated into the hill, and the rocks closed behind it.

  Narodny and the others stood before the gigantic television screen, shifting upon it images of city after city, country after country, over all Earth’s surface. Lao, the Chinese, said: “Many men died, but many are left. They may not understand—but to them it was worth it.”

  Narodny mused: “It drives home the lesson, what man does not pay for, he values little. Our friends aloft will have little opposition now I think.”

  He shook his head, doubtfully. “But I still do not like that Wrongness of Space. I do not want my music spoiled again by him, Lao. Shall we hurl the moon out of the universe, Lao?”

  Lao laughed: “And what then would you do for moon music?”

  Narodny said: “True. Well, let us see what men can do. There is always time—perhaps.”

  The difficulties which beset humanity did not interest the poet Narodny. While the world governments were reorganized—factories turned out spaceships for Earth’s fleet—men were trained in handling these ships—supplies were gathered—weapons were perfected—and when the message from Luna, outlining the course to be followed and setting the starting date, arrived, the space fleet of Earth was ready to leave.

  Narodny watched the ships take off. He shook his head, doubtfully. But soon harmonies were swelling through the great cavern of the orchards and nymphs and fauns dancing under the fragrant blossoming trees—and the world was again forgotten by Narodny.

  The Microscopic Giants

  PAUL ERNST

  Paul Ernst (1899–1985) was a US writer who wrote mostly short fiction for pulp markets. His first published story may have been “The Temple of Serpents” for Weird Tales in 1928, and he remained extremely active throughout the 1930s, writing for science fiction and fantasy magazines. Under the house name Kenneth Robeson, he was responsible for much of the contents of The Avenger, writing all twenty-three novel-length stories for that magazine between 1939 and 1942, each featuring the Avenger, a superhero who fought a wide range of villains. Ernst also wrote a D
octor Satan series for Weird Tales, beginning, predictably enough, with “Doctor Satan” (1935), which is fantasy along conventional hero-villain lines. One-off stories appeared mostly in magazines like Astounding Science Fiction. Then, in the mid-1940s, Ernst switched over to writing mostly for mainstream magazines such as Good Housekeeping and his science fiction output became minimal, at best.

  “The Microscopic Giants,” his best story, was first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories (1936). Anthologized later in Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum (1965), the story features a race of people living under the Earth. Ernst combines a fascination with miniaturization with a modified hollow-Earth scenario. In addition to myths in almost every culture and religion recounting “underground lands,” hollow-Earth theories had been popular in the US since the 1800s, often backed up by seemingly “reliable” science. Some “researchers” made entire careers out of lecturing on the subject. (Hollow Earth by David Standish, 2006, provides a lovely overview of the history of this fascination—the theories, legends, and modern-day personalities involved.)

  Ernst’s story reflects not just one potent vein of early twentieth-century science fiction, but a public fascination with the idea. This fascination had been fed by such earlier examples as Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar novels, which featured wild adventures in a prehistoric level below the Earth’s crust. Another early example of mysterious underground societies, more horror than science fiction, is on display in Robert Barbour Johnson’s “Far Below” (Weird Tales, 1939), collected in The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories.