Adam Link, Robot

by Eando Binder

  “Fire—fire—fire—fire!”

  My gunsight eyes moved like a raking machine-gun along the length of the ship. The gun thumped in unison, blowing gaping holes in the craft. It broke in gyrating shreds. Horned figures spilled out and fell to the dome.

  When the rain of debris had ceased, all was quiet again. Ship Two had arrived.

  But no more would.

  With my shoulder against one support of the giant long-range radio, I shoved. The framework toppled, bringing the entire machine down with a crash. I stamped all its parts to bits.

  Then I looked up, out of the slide-roof, singling Sirius out of the starry hosts. I laughed. Two robots had dealt that mighty sun a staggering blow.

  No, one robot.

  I went below, again. I picked up Eve’s dead form, and held it in my arms. Then I gave commands to the engine.

  With a powerful bellow, the rear rockets burst forth. The gigantic craft rammed forward, like a caged lion. Its sharp prow plowed through thin partitions as through cheese.

  “Faster! Faster!” I commanded.

  Like a great battering ram, the ship speared for the central power-room of the dome. The nose crunched against the protecting walls, broke them down. The subatomic-power generator they had used hummed busily in the center, still automatically gushing untold energy into the storage coils.

  The ship plowed into the whole unit, cracking screens. Unleashed energy leaped forth.

  “We will be together, Eve,” I said, “in death.”

  The cosmos blew up. A million megawatts of raging fury expended itself in one titanic explosion.

  The mind of Adam Link blinked out. I wished it so, following Eve into the unknowing state.

  But the mind of Adam Link blinked into being again. I was alive.

  “Eve, how can this be?” I stammered.

  We were sitting up, staring around. We were at the edge of a broken cliff. Ocean-waves were dashing against the new cliff shore. The explosion had not only blown the dome to atoms, but it had severed the entire headland from its matrix. No sign remained of the dome’s former site. It was all washed over by lapping, swirling waters.

  And we were alive, at the edge of the schism.

  One thing had survived with us, from the dome. The blunt prow of the spaceship. It had been blown up and away, integrally, with two unconscious metal forms flattening against it. We had landed, with freakish gentleness, in soft sand.

  “The prow,” Eve said, “was probably designed to withstand head-on collision with any but the largest meteors in space. It held up and saved us.”

  I nodded—and then suddenly stared at Eve, aghast.

  “You’re dead,” I gasped stupidly. “Eve, you’re dead—”

  “Seemed dead, perhaps,” Eve corrected. “The bolt singed my brain, knocking me unconscious. Evidently that jar jolted me back to my senses.”

  I arose, then, hammering my metal fists against my metal chest. Like a metal Tarzan, I gave a bellow of pure triumph. I shook my fist up at the star Sirius.

  “Set you back on your heels, didn’t I?” I shouted. “In all the universe, no creatures can stand up against Adam Link—”

  My legs crumpled suddenly. The chest-beating had loosened a wire within, short-circuiting my locomotor center. I collapsed and sprawled on the ground, helpless.

  “Serves you right,” Eve chided, as she took off my chest-plate and worked over me. “You bragging fool. It was more luck than brains.”

  Eve was right. But when a grey ship nosed over the horizon, at dawn, I ran to shore eagerly to meet its launch.

  Joe Trent, United States secret service agent, stepped to shore, with the battleship’s captain and fleet-commander.

  “Adam Link,” Trent greeted. “How did you do it? You blew up the dome somehow?”

  “I did,” I returned proudly. “Sabotage with a capital S. You see, I rammed their spaceship smack into the atomic-power unit and—”

  Trent and the others listened, puzzled.

  “Spaceship? Atomic-power unit? What are you talking about?”

  “The aliens,” I said. “The aliens who built the dome—”

  “Yes, of course, the aliens,” Trent nodded. “But which aliens? All foreigners are aliens, naturally. Tell us, was it the foreign power we expected it was?”

  “Don’t you understand—” I began, but Eve shook her head at me. I knew what she meant. There was not one stick or stone left of the dome. Besides Adam and Eve Link, no human eyes except those of men now dead had seen the aliens from outer space.

  My voice ground to a stop. Trent and the others were patiently waiting to hear which foreign power across the sea had been so close to invading America.

  They did not even know, of course, that this had been an invasion from outer space.

  It took me some time to put across the truth, in low measured tones. Their faces registered complete shock. It was a mental atomic bomb bursting, to them. It was immediately classified and Eve and I were sworn to secrecy.

  But I had a shock too, when we reached Washington the next day. Eve clutched my arm as figures approached. Three of them I recognized instantly—Jack Hall and his wife Kay, and Tom Link. My staunch human friends who had stuck with me through thick and thin, for five years.

  Also I saw Bart Oliver, and Senator Willoughby, and Dalhgren and Jenson, and other humans who had known me and sympathized with me. What did it mean, all of them gathered together, greeting my return from the alien fort? It seemed to be a sort of ceremony.

  The last figure I blinked at, with my mouth open.

  “The President of the United States!” Eve gasped.

  The President held an object in his hand. “Adam Link,” he said. “It seems downright silly to give you this. You didn’t save America. You saved the world. The U.N. would give you a better decoration”—he bent over to whisper in my ear—“except that the fort affair report has been consigned to their secret files, as well as ours. The world will never be told—it wouldn’t believe.”

  He straightened up, spoke loudly. “Here is the best award from America, the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

  He went on, unfolding a paper. “What’s more, please accept these papers without any strings attached, on your own special terms. I only make one solemn request of you, Adam Link.” His voice was grave. “Don’t run against me in the next election. You might win.”

  Now his face had broken into a broad grin. How I ever got those papers open, with my ten thumbs, I’ll never know. Then Eve and I saw what the document, in duplicate, was…

  Jack and Kay and Tom were beside me, faces beaming. All my human friends were here, sharing the moment with me.

  One other was with me in spirit—Dr. Link, my creator.

  “Hello, Mr. Adam Link, citizen of the United States,” Eve whispered to me softly.

  EPILOGUE

  That is my story—the story of Adam Link.

  Have I truly solved my problems? Is it really wise for robots to gain citizenship? Or should they be patented? Should Eve and I create a robot race? Would they aid mankind—or become Frankensteins?

  Am I, the first intelligent robot, a monster—or a man?

  I will let you decide. The facts of the matter are before you. You will have time to think it over, all over earth. You will not hear from me for years, perhaps.

  Eve and I are meanwhile working on a project that will take all our time and effort. We are leaving earth after all—the world in which, for a time, we seemed to have no place—but our going away is only to think through our robot future, thoroughly.

  Before this decade is out, your newspapers will bear the sensational headline—“FIRST ASTRONAUTS ACHIEVE LUNAR LANDING!” I wish you humans luck in reaching the moon successfully.

  When you do, I’ll be waiting there for you.

  —Adam Link