by Eando Binder
“It accounts for the rapid construction of the dome,” I nodded. “Joe Trent swore the dome was not here a month ago. They built this whole dome in that short time. Any comparable structure would take earth engineers at least a year. Let’s look at the guns, Eve.”
CHAPTER 19
Robot Saboteurs
Following a passage that led to the gun-emplacements, we approached the first. Dark and unattended, we could make little out except that it was surprisingly small—a mere ten-foot instrument of intricate design. But the guns must be super-powerful. They had shot earth warships out of the water, with one charge each.
By what principle? What did they shoot? How did they aim so accurately?
The answer came more quickly and completely than I wanted.
Without warning, an ear-shattering report sounded against the outside of the dome. Then I caught the drone of aircraft. The U.S.A.F. was making a desperate night attack, since the truce attempt—the false one Eve and I had been part of—had come to nothing.
The aliens streamed to their guns. What I saw then I hardly believed. Each gunner simply wore a helmet with wires trailing to the breech of the gun. Then he raised his eyes to a plane above, seen through a slit, and the gun magically aimed the same way. Finally, at his silent command, the gun spoke only a fractional second later. The target plane exploded into debris, struck by a hissing charge of something infernal.
After watching this same performance a few times, it all clicked in my mind. “Eve,” I whispered. “Earth has no chance against that weapon. It shoots electric bolts at the speed of light itself. And most diabolical of all is their aiming method—simply looking at a plane with their eyes. The most accurate ‘gunsight’ possible. And a simple swift thought-command then fires the gun. In essence, the aliens kill with their thoughts. Aim, fire! Aim, fire! As fast as they think it, humans die.”
After dozens of American planes went down, the attack broke.
Stunned, Eve and I returned to prison, bending the bars straight after letting ourselves in. In the morning, the awakened dome would not know of the two robot spies who had learned much—but not yet enough.
“What was the excitement about?” Captain Taylor asked. “We heard muffled thumps down here.”
He and his men listened to our story with incredulous eyes. “Thought-controlled guns,” Taylor mused. “If we could spike those, the dome would be defenseless—”
“For about a week,” I cut in. “Earth forces would continue to bomb—and fail to chip off an atom. And in a week, the aliens would make new guns with their plastic magic. No, men. We have to get at the root of the dome. Somewhere they must have a generator that feeds power to the guns. Probably a thermonuclear unit. If I can find that…”
The next night, Eve and I again sauntered out of prison. Again our jailer was sleeping away a watch that to him seemed totally unnecessary.
We roamed completely around the dome, looking for a central power-plant. We peered in bunk-rooms, in which aliens slept heavily. Supply rooms, stacked with boxes and plastic-cans of their food. The air-conditioning room, where a huge, silent machine piped cold air, normal to them, through the dome.
“If we could only find a room with weapons,” I told Eve. “Distributed among the men, we would have an armed fighting force.”
But there seemed no small-weapon supply, outside of those carried by the aliens themselves. Balked at every turn! We could not keep up this night spying forever. Sooner or later we would be discovered. Before that, we had to have some definite plan of action.
I reported no luck to the men, back at prison. They groaned in dismay. Each day several of them had been taken away, never to return. Our numbers were going down steadily. And the chill of prison was weakening those left.
“We’ve got to do something, Adam Link,” Taylor kept saying. “Can’t you think of anything?”
He was beginning to lose faith in me. All the men were. They expected Adam Link, from stories they had heard of me, to storm through the aliens like a metal tornado. They could not understand my slow, cautious course.
They did not know that Adam Link was afraid, for the first time in his life. That for once he was up against powers that appalled him. That even a robot must hesitate before things of nearly equal strength, ability and science.
“Patience,” I admonished. “Nazi Germany was not pulled down in one day.”
The third night Eve and I explored all corridors leading down. Finally we found it—the power-room. But it was completely sealed off. Diamond-hard plastic walls barred us.
We could only put our ears to the solidly locked doors and hear within the low, steady hum of the generator.
“Probably supplies a hundred gigawatts to the guns above,” I said. “Namely, 100 billion watts, a magnitude unknown on earth. Those guns blast like lightning, at a pressure of at least 10 megavolts. This plant could probably light half of the world for a year. There is more power concentrated under this dome than in all the cities of earth combined.”
“But we can’t get at it,” Eve murmured. “We can’t spike it.”
“No, not yet,” I agreed, filing the room’s location away in my mind. If we could find some instrument or method of breaking into the power-room, it would be the answer.
We found another corridor winding down. It opened out into what I knew must be an underground space. It was wide, huge and dark. We did not make out the bulk in the center at first, till our eyes adjusted to the gloom. Light strayed from the corridor.
The object was 1000 feet long, 100 feet wide, in a torpedo shape. It had no wings. From front and rear projected tiers of tubes, many fanning downward.
“It’s their space ship,” I breathed, “with which they dropped down on earth like a striking eagle. Let’s look it over.”
Undisturbed, we spent an hour there. Its hatch was open. The hull was empty, except for its motor. It had brought the aliens, all their supplies and equipment. It was stored away now, not needed except in the remote event of having to flee.
My scientific curiosity was feverishly aroused by the engine. Was it a thermonuclear power plant, spitting atom energy from the multitude of drive tubes? How far had it propelled the mighty ship through space? At what stupendous velocity?
I examined the machine with awe. No engine on earth approached it. Autos, trucks, trains, ocean liners, jets, crawled over earth’s surface at a snail’s pace. Even orbiting satellites at 17,600 mph, and space probes at escape-velocity’s 7 mps, could not come near this starship’s fleetness. Their stupendous craft had plunged through the deeps of space at perhaps fractional light-speed.
“Eve,” I exclaimed. “Now we’re getting somewhere. If I could once find out how to run this ship—”
How did it operate? But here I was completely stumped. The science of earth was dumb before it. The science of Adam Link stammered in bewilderment. The control board was an electronic maze of switches, relays, dials, rheostats, all numbered and designated with the alien’s enigmatic figures.
“Only the aliens could tell us how to run it,” Eve said. “And of course that’s out of the question.”
Ironic situation. A plan was shaping in my mind. A plan to demolish the dome. But one vital factor was missing—how to run this ship. And certainly the aliens wouldn’t oblige to their own undoing.
“Still,” I growled impotently to Eve, “we could wreck the thing.”
“What good would that do?” Eve said. “Except to make them all the more determined to conquer earth, having to stay.”
Another thing caught my eye, in a dark corner of the huge underground hangar. A dully glinting angular shape of metal. A tank. One of the captured tanks that they had driven in, perhaps for examination of earthling war-machines. A pile of metal back of it told of the other tanks taken apart in the investigation. This one tank was left, probably as a museum-piece after earth had been conquered.
“That tank, Eve,” I whispered. “It has guns, ammunition, armor-plate—”
Ev
e shook her head. “One tank and two robots against a dome-full of aliens?”
The odds were still against us. We turned away and slipped back to prison.
“Any luck?” Taylor asked hopefully, for his shivering, miserable men.
I shook my head.
“I still don’t know how many aliens there are, altogether. That’s vital. Tomorrow night I’ll try to get a count on them. And plan a course of action.”
“Tomorrow night,” Taylor groaned. “Always tomorrow night. And each day six of us are taken away, one or two die from sickness, and we all go slowly mad.”
“Patience,” I said wearily. “Tomorrow night I promise you a plan.”
And then, as though to smash my careful course, aliens came that day.
They ran an eye appraisingly over our ranks, picking the three burliest men. Two were six-foot men, weighing over 200 pounds apiece. I was the third. I had tried to escape being picked, hanging back as before but this time they singled me out. I was, in appearance, a sturdy human being.
“Come along,” said the aliens, waving their guns. “If you don’t come willingly, we’ll paralyze you.”
The two men shrugged, waved farewell, and stepped out without a word. I followed, without a word. There was nothing else to do. If I resisted now and exposed myself, it would be too soon. Perhaps, before they were done with me, I would find out vital information.
I signaled Eve with my eyes not to worry about me.
We were led up the sloping corridor that I knew. It led to the apex of the dome, into the giant chamber of the signal-light, gun-recesses, and unfinished transmitter.
Workmen were just clambering down from the scaffolds around the latter. A space had been cleared and roped off, near the searchlight. Chief Thorg stood in the center, where we were stationed, and his men congregated around.
“You have been working hard, men,” he said, still using the English language. “Our schedule has gone well. Now, as reward, you will have some other sport, since the earthlings have given up attacking. Our best fighter will battle three humans at once.”
It was a sport arena.
A half-naked alien strode up. It was Mog, with whom I had exchanged blows once. By sheer coincidence we were again pitted together. How could I fail to show my true strength this time? It would probably be a battle to the finish, like the Roman gladiatorial affairs of a past age.
The arena cleared. Mog, an ugly, overgrown, horned monstrosity, swung his long arms and prepared to tackle us three. The spectators cheered, urging him on.
I swept an eye around, counting the aliens. Nine hundred and ninety-three, perhaps the dome’s full force except for a few at watch-stations below. One thousand of the extra-terrestrial enemy, a formidable number. I filed the fact away in my mind. It was a vital factor and the final one—almost.
But now, what about Mog?
The battle was short, ghastly. The two earthmen bravely met Mog’s charge, even running to meet him. Mog punched one to insensibility, with rapid blows, while the other clung to his arms futilely. Then he took them both by the scruff of the neck and cracked their skulls together. He dropped them, and faced me.
I had hung back. Yes, I had let the two men die. Yet I had had to silently yell to myself that more than two lives were at stake. The world was at stake. Three billion lives. My duty was clear, under these grim circumstances. I had to learn one more thing about the dome. I had to keep my human subterfuge. When Mog came at me, like a lumbering behemoth, I grasped him around the middle and hung on. Wildly he hammered at my back with his huge fists, but only wore himself down.
The watchers tensed. Who was this human who had hung back like a coward, and now seemed able to take any punishment?
“Oh, it’s you!” Mog roared, finally recognizing me. “The strong one. I’ll show you—”
He stooped and gave me a bear-hug, in return. His knotty arms squeezed with force that would have crushed every rib in a human body. It actually made my rivets squeak a little, under the plastic disguise and clothes. I couldn’t resist squeezing back, taking care to measure out the force of it sparsely. All his breath came out, in a gust. His eyes swam dizzily.
I let him get his breath back, but thereafter he was weakened enough so that his blows came fewer. He kicked at me with his hooves, and gritted his teeth at the pain of nearly breaking his leg. He tried picking me clear off the floor and dashing me flat. I put my foot-plate back of his knee and he very nearly wrenched his own arms out.
“Enough,” Chief Thorg said suddenly. “You are weakening, Mog. This earth air is thin. Too much effort might harm you. You have furnished us sport. Now back to work, everyone. Guards, take the earth prisoner to the vivisection room.”
From bad to worse!
I had successfully come through the match, unrevealed as a robot. Now they would “vivisect” me. One thrust with a knife and they would know—
What now? Challenge them? Run and hide? I might have tried the latter, if there weren’t so many present. But they would be after me like a pack. No, I would have to take my chances in the vivisection room.
The vivisection room, somewhere below, was a grisly place. Human corpses, in various degrees of dissection, lay on slabs. On one slab, a poor wretch was still alive, his naked body covered with incisions and gore. I steeled myself. No use trying to save him. He was too far gone. If I killed the alien torturer, the mangled human would die anyway a few minutes later.
The victim squirmed against his straps, gave a week gasp, and expired. I relaxed. A robot cannot show it, but within me I was sweating in rage and pity.
My turn was next. Methodically, I was strapped to a slab. Questions were hurled at me, first. Mental inquisition, for useful information.
“How many of you earthlings are there on this planet?”
“Guess,” I returned contemptuously.
“How many cities on earth? Where are the important ones located?”
“Here and there.”
“Which is your weakest continent?”
“The one called Atlantis,” I lied.
The alien glared, and lowered his horns, butting me in the side. I think he nearly broke his neck. He didn’t try it again.
“Stubborn, like all the rest,” he growled. “Well, I’ll take you apart now.”
He wrenched my clothes off.
“Peculiar specimen,” he commented, bending over me.
I was. My plastic disguise was badly battered, both from the tank explosion and Mog’s manipulations. Metal peeped forth here and there. And instead of my nose there was only a gaping hole.
The alien biologist peered up and down. Surely he must see. Any moment he would yell his discovery, that I was a robot. Then I would be forced to act and quickly—and still without a definite plan.
But he made no yell. His unaccustomed eyes still took me for a strange variety of the human specimen. Some had been scarred, being soldiers by profession. This one was scarred more, that was all. I almost laughed in his face, calling him a fool mentally.
With quick efficiency, he wheeled an apparatus over that I knew instantly for an X-ray machine. He snapped a button several times, taking full-length prints of my interior. How amazed he would be to see the developed prints—wheels, wires and cogs. But that would not be for hours, perhaps. I had gained that much time, if he did nothing more to me.
But now he poised a gleaming knife over me.
“This will hurt,” he said bluntly, emotionlessly. “We are studying the nerve reactions of you humans under pain, for future reference.”
He plunged the knife down. He made an incision in my chest under the skin—or plastic. I squirmed, and gave a microphonic moan for his benefit.
He nodded, as though it checked with previous reactions. Again he incised what in a human was a delicate, painful nerve. Again I squirmed. But the farce could not go on. Had he forgotten that human bled when punctured?
I calculated my chances, preparing to spring up.
He
jabbed the knife again, deeper this time. It met metal with a jar. Startled, he drew the blade out, staring at the blunted tip.
I sat up, snapping the straps like strings.
“Now you know,” I said. “I’m a rob—”
I was interrupted. A voice droned from a loudspeaker set in the ceiling.
“Our radio has just contacted Ship Two, which is now approaching the Solar System. Leave all posts and come to the Apex Room. Chief Thorg wishes to outline further plans, now that Ship Two is known to be coming.”
The aliens in the dissection room looked at one another joyfully.
“Ship Two is coming,” one said. “It will be good to see some more of the fellows from home. Let’s go. We’ll take this prisoner below.”
I was safe for the time. The alien biologist was too excited to remember his bent knife now. They conducted me below, to the prison, then left.
The prisoners gathered around me eagerly. I was the first one ever to return, from the unknown horrors above. Eve touched me in the way I knew meant she was mentally sobbing in relief.
“How did you get back alive?” Captain Taylor asked. “What did you find out?”
I told the story. They clenched their fists, hearing of the brutal death of the two men in the arena, and shuddered at the horrible end of the vivisection victim.
“Murder,” Taylor hissed. “Plain stark murder and torture. And you didn’t stop it, Adam Link?”
Suddenly they all drew away from me a little. I had let the tragedies occur right under my eyes, without lifting a finger. Humanly, they resented it.
“I couldn’t expose myself,” I said patiently. “I must continue to parade as a human, and find out one more thing.”
“Yes—find out how to escape,” one of the men piped up loudly. “It’s clear now, Adam Link. You’re afraid yourself. Afraid of being finished off, once they know you for a robot. All you’re thinking of is your own safety.”
Another soldier’s voice rang hoarsely.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Adam Link was thinking of going in cahoots with the aliens. After all, Adam Link isn’t human either, and—”
