After the war, Earth stored away its robot
armies or sold them for scrap--because fighting
machines were dangerous. But more deadly was--
THE COSMIC JUNKMAN
By Rog Phillips
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
December 1953
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Log Report_:--
_Fleet: Alpha Aquilae; 20,080 surviving ships. Flagship ROVER._
_Personnel: human;_
_Fleet Admiral William A. Ford, Vice Admiral Paul G. Belcross
robot;_
_2,649,366 (Ids. appended)_
_passenger: (human);_
_Generalissimo Vilbis (prisoner under w.c.a.)_
_Dates May 7, 4765; flight formation arrow, speed 1,700,000 m.p.s._
_Scheduled date of arrival at Earth: June 11, 4766_
_Distance from Earth on Earth-Aquilae axis: ten light years._
"Rummy," Vilbis said, reaching through the hand-hole in the inch thick
laminated glass wall of his prison and spreading his cards on the
table. His lips formed into the cruel haughty smile that had been his
trademark to billions of humans for almost half a century. His wide-set
black eyes mocked the other two players.
"Well, well," Paul Belcross smirked. "I see now why you lost the war,
Vilbis. Isn't that a six of diamonds in your heart sequence?"
The black eyes glanced down. The long-fingered hand began to retrieve
the cards, then paused. Vilbis' almost classic features darkened with
anger. With an effort he became calm. A secret inner amusement made
little lights in his eyes as he looked up at his two captors again.
"You know," Bill Ford said thoughtfully, "sometimes I think you
must have some kind of an ace up your sleeve. You don't seem at all
concerned that this is your last trip. The War Crimes Court--then death
by hanging." Bill frowned. "Could be you figured the angle I've always
worried about. The Federation is always too quick to demobilize the
robots after a war. Some day some punk like you is going to take that
into consideration. He's going to surrender, but have a reserve space
navy waiting until Earth is without defenses, then take over and win."
"Too bad I didn't think of that when I could have done something about
it," Vilbis said too cheerfully.
"Maybe you did think of it," Bill said. "When we get home I'm going to
suggest we keep the Aquilae Fleet mobilized for at least ten years."
"You know they won't do that," Paul Belcross said. "They're more afraid
of the robots than they are of attack. So am I, actually."
"We're just afraid of what they could do if they got free," Bill said.
"Their potential intelligence is greater than human. If they overcame
their built-in instinct for obedience to human command they could--why
think of what our two million robots could do!"
"Why all this discussion of robots?" Vilbis said. "They're just dogs.
Not even that. They were dogs for six months of their existence
before their brains were transplanted into synthegell fluid by the
mind transplant machine." His eyes took on a far away look. His voice
became regretful. "I had a hundred thousand scientists working on that
problem. If the mind of one dog could be transplanted into synthegell
without destroying the dog's brain there would be no limit to the
production of robot brain cartridges. If we could have licked that
problem I'd have won the war."
"If!" Paul spat. "You're a renegade Earthman. I'm putting in my
application to be the one to hang you as soon as we get home."
"How do you--" Vilbis clamped his lips closed and scooped up his cards.
"How do we know we'll get home?" Bill Ford said. "Is that what you were
going to say?"
Vilbis looked at his cards casually. "No," he said absently. "I was
going to say how do you expect to play cards and talk at the same time?"
A raucous blast exploded in the room. Bill and Paul stared at each
other in surprise. Vilbis smiled.
Bill leaped across the room to the cm board. He jabbed at buttons.
A giant screen lit up, showing a spaceship. Smaller screens lit up,
revealing robot ship commanders.
"Look at that ship, Paul," Bill said. "You know them all. Aquilanean,
Centaurian, Cygnian. It isn't any known type--and with a war just over,
there hasn't been time to mass-produce new types." He jabbed at a
button. "All ships," he said. "All ships. Defense formation five. Five.
Operation three. Three." He listened to the repeats.
* * * * *
Paul Belcross had leaped to the huge tri-di sphere and turned it on.
Seconds later both men, Vilbis forgotten but watching with bright eyes,
were studying the small dots in the tri-di. The flight formation in the
shape of a giant arrow was quickly changing shape as the fleet formed
a defensive sphere around the flagship and its human occupants. The
_Rover_ was the only bright blue dot. The others were red.
But now other dots were materializing at the outer fringe of the
tri-di, too many new dots to count. Approaching ships.
Across the room a voice from a loudspeaker was saying, "Eighty seconds
to contact. No response. No response."
"Another second and they'll be within range," Paul said.
"God!" Bill's voice exploded. His eyes were on the large area of the
tri-di where ships had abruptly ceased to exist.
"Something's wrong with the tri-di," Paul said. "No weapon could do
that."
"Nothing's wrong with the tri-di," Bill said sharply. "And we don't
have that kind of weapon. They're something alien. Have to be. Some
other galaxy. There's always been that possibility."
A rapidly repeated pip-pip-pip came from the cm board. Bill leaped to
it. A light, under a small screen showing a robot, was blinking. He
pressed the button. The robot saluted. His Id was stamped across his
chrome chest, with four gold stars after it. "We will be destroyed,
sir," it said. "Would suggest Flagship _Rover_ change course forty
degrees at eight o'clock and go on without fleet."
"You're giving orders?" Bill said, his face going pale and his eyes
narrowing--not at the impending defeat, but at this sign of independent
initiative in a robot.
"It's your only chance for survival," the robot said. "It must be done
at once."
"Place yourself under ship arrest and give me the next in command,"
Bill ordered sharply. The screen went blank. "That's mutiny!" he
shouted, unbelieving.
Vilbis, behind his glass wall, laughed aloud.
"Not mutiny," Paul said. "They are gone. All our ships are gone!" His
voice conveyed the incredulous horror in his mind.
In the tri-di there was only the bright blue dot, and the thousands of
approaching ships of the enemy.
The next instant the ship lurched violently.
"They're boarding!" Bill shouted. "But they aren't going to get Vilbis
back alive."
He leaped to a locker and opened it with clumsy fingers, bringing out
a g.i. raygun. He turned to leap toward the glass wall separating him
from Vilbis. Before he could take a step a large section of a bulkhead
vanished in smoke. For a brief instant Bill and Paul stared with
unbelieving eyes at what entered the room.
Then they died.
"Stop!" The word exploded from Vilbis's lips. He stared at the cooked
flesh that had been his captors. Then his eyes lifted to the jagged
hole in the bulkhead.
"You fools!" he spat. His lips curled with cold anger. "Where do you
hope to get two other humans now?"
* * * * *
The demobilization station trailed the Earth, a million and a half
miles behind and in the same orbit around the Sun. It was shaped like
a thick disc. At the moment there were five ships resting against
one surface of the station. Three of them were warships. One was a
Federation ship. The fifth was a giant freighter with _SURPLUS JUNK
CO._ painted on it in bold blue letters.
Each of the five ships was attached to the space station underneath its
hulk by short airlocks containing elevators. These led down into the
station where air pressure was kept at fifteen pounds.
Inside the station, robots were emerging from the elevators leading to
the three warships. The robots were all identical except for their Id
numbers across their metallic chests. Arms and legs of metal rods and
joints in almost exact duplication of human bones, torso shaped like a
metal box, short neck joint supporting a head that was little more than
two four inch glass lenses, two rod-microphones, and a small voice box.
The emerging robots moved at orders snapped by a human and marched
toward a building fifty yards away, where they lined up at attention
and became motionless.
Two humans moved swiftly down the line, behind the lined up robots. At
each robot one of them twisted a copper-colored disk in the robot's
back, carefully drew out a cylinder eight inches long and four inches
in diameter, and handed the cylinder to the other, who lowered it into
a plastic case. These cylinders were the brains of the robots. They
were destined for the Federal ship--and storage until the next war.
While the robot brain was being lowered into its plastic storage case
by the one man, the first lifted the now demobilized robot body and
placed it on a cart, already stacked high with similar bodies. The
immediate destination of these bodies was the junk company freighter.
If the robots were aware of what was about to happen to them as they
waited, they gave no indication, no protest. Their lens eyes were
directed straight ahead of them, unmoving--except for one robot.
The Id across its chest was 532-03-2615 followed by four gold stars.
Its head was turned just enough so that it could see down the line. Its
rod microphones were turned so that it could listen....
"That junkman gives me the creeps, Joe," the man placing brain
cylinders into plastic cases grumbled.
"That's because he's a creep, Mel. Here. Take this." He thrust a brain
cylinder at his companion.
"Hey! Careful!" Joe said, almost dropping it.
Mel chuckled and flipped the robot body, almost weightless on the
station here in space, carelessly to the top of the stack on the truck.
"Here comes junky now, Joe," he said.
"Don't damage the bodies. Don't damage the bodies." The figure that
approached, pushing an empty truck, wore a dirty and well worn civilian
suit that seemed even more decrepit in contrast to the neat military
uniforms. His skin was leathery. A pair of glasses hung on his hawkish
nose, their thick lenses magnifying the close-set eyes underneath, and
making them seem to lie on the inner surfaces. His lips were partly
open, but never seemed to move while he talked. "There was a cracked
lens on one," he accused.
"What's the matter, junky?" Joe grinned. "If we get a scratch on one
it's still two hundred pounds of scrap metal--or were you planning on
using the bodies?" He and Mel laughed.
"Who knows?" the junkman said. "I only follow my orders. No scratches.
No damage to the bodies. Who knows? Maybe they go into storage until
the next war." He reached with a dirty hand to clutch at Mel's lapel,
but didn't make it. "I'll show you," he said. "_Two_ of them are
damaged. Not worth seventeen credits."
"Can't stop now," Mel said. "We want to get done by quitting time. Joe
has a date."
"Come on," the junkman said. "You've got to look. I have to have
witnesses when I hand in my report on the carelessness of the military."
"Oh, all right," Mel said. He and Joe followed the dusty junkman around
the building.
The instant they were out of sight, 2615 moved, running swiftly around
the other end of the building. It reached a vantage point where its
lens eyes could watch the three figures when they emerged from the
elevator to the ship above.
It watched Joe and Mel return to their work. It waited until the
junkman had gone for another truckload of demobilized robot bodies.
Then, swiftly, it ran to the elevator. At the top it sent the elevator
back down, then faced the tiers of frames that filled the vast hold of
the ship. Most of them now held inert robot shapes.
2615 chose an empty rack and climbed in, lying face up. It looked no
different than any of the thousands of other forms.
It remained motionless. The junkman returned with load after load.
Eventually the hold was filled. Clanging and whirring noises told of
preparations for departure.
Acceleration pushed the robot deeper into the protective foam rubber of
its rack. It waited....
* * * * *
Fear. It began in the eyes of the cataloguer when his sorting machine
came to a stop on the Id card for 532-03-2615. It grew as a terrible,
animating force that drained blood from faces and made hands clumsy, as
the checking and rechecking on 2615 began. It spread through networks
of communication wires. It stopped at the borders of news release, lest
it spread over the world.
Fear organized itself, finally, settling into a pasty expression,
unnatural eyes, and drumming fingers. The expression and eyes and
fingers belonged to Carl Wilson, chief of the Demobilization staff. It
centered there, but its aura spread out over the backwash it had left.
Fear lurked in the hushed silence. Fear rode as an undertone in the
slightest sound, lay ready to spring from behind every door.
Larry Jackson felt it as he gave the receptionist his name.
Stella Gamble was oblivious of it as she pushed into the waiting room.
Larry looked at her and wished it was his day off and a girl like her
was with him. He wondered what her name was.
"I'm Stella Gamble," Stella said to the receptionist. "I've got to see
Mr. Wilson at once. My freighter is overdue with two million junked
robots. Something's got--"
"Will you please be seated, Miss Gamble?" the receptionist said firmly.
Then, "You may go right in, Mr. Jackson. Mr. Wilson is waiting for you."
It was then Stella and Larry looked into each other's eyes. Hers were
narrowed, sizing him up, guessing what he was and why he was there. His
were friendly, smiling.
"Thanks," he murmured to the receptionist. He went toward the door,
conscious of Stella's eyes following him. He went in.
"_There_ you are, Jackson," Wilson said, running fingers through his
iron gray hair in nervous relief. "You've guessed why--"
"Yes," Larry said.
Behind him the door opened violently. Sharp heels clicked on the floor.
"Mr. Wilson," Stella demanded. "I know why this man is here. You're
going to give him instructions to blast my freighter out of existence
the minute he can--"
"You're Stella Gamble?" Wilson said. "I've heard of you. Will you
please wait in the reception room until I finish with--"
"Larry Jackson," Stella pronounced the name. Her wide-set blue eyes
showed scorn. "The man who is going to kill one of my men and destroy
my ship and its cargo just to get at a robot."
"_Just_ to get at a robot?" Wilson said indignantly. "You must be out
of your head!" He picked up an oblong of paper on his desk and thrust
it at Larry. "The junkship has been traced three hundred million miles
out by routine radar. You can pick it up from there by ion tracking--we
hope. Don't take any chances. _Destroy that ship!_" His lips trembled.
"Even if the pilot is still on it. It's one life against...." He
didn't complete the thought.
"Against fear," Stella said. "You are all cowards. Afraid of a dog
because it could turn against you."
"Afraid of an _intelligence_," Wilson said wearily. His lips pulled
back in a weak grin. "So are you. You're just more afraid of going
broke."
Larry folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He turned toward the
door. Stella clutched his sleeve, stopping him. She spoke swiftly,
pleading. "Let me go with you. I'm capable. Give me a chance to go down
and reason with that robot. If it doesn't work...."
Larry looked at her upturned face, the lips that could smile or laugh
more naturally than pout, the wide-set eyes that could do things to
him at any other time. He thought, it's a shame I won't ever get the
chance. "Sorry, Miss Gamble," he said stiffly, "I'm on duty, and I'm
not permitted to take passengers with me."
He went on toward the door, feeling his sleeve tear at her nails as she
tried to hold him longer.
"It's very unfortunate--" Wilson said as Larry opened the door.
"If I can't go with him after my freighter I'm going after it on my
own!" Stella said as he closed the door.
Larry put his fingers to his lips for the benefit of the receptionist
and swiftly side-stepped to a filing cabinet where he stooped down out
of sight.
The next instant the door from Wilson's office burst open again,
banging against the wall. Stella's eyes searched the office. She ran to
the hall door, and out.
Larry bounded back into Wilson's office. Wilson said, "Whew!" and
mopped his brow, then pointed to his private entrance. Larry nodded and
left.
* * * * *
It was a world of hard whites and bottomless blacks, with the hard
whites so close they gave you the feeling you could reach out and
touch them. Then you blinked your eyes and they were holes in infinity
through which loneliness poured. That was space. Sure, there was the
Earth somewhere aft of the rockets' red glare, and the Moon, looking
like high-priced models against a velvet backdrop.
But you didn't look at them, because the stars were points on a tri-di
screen, and you were back in school working a problem in navigation and
hoping you didn't get a wrong answer.
You loved it--or you went crazy. Larry loved it. Or maybe it wasn't
love. It was like a woman. It was in his blood.
He stopped punching the keys of the calculator and used both hands to
press the studs controlling the gyro motors, watching the needles of
gyro meters until they pointed to the right numbers.
He took several deep breaths, squirming back in his seat against the
form-fitting cushion of foam rubber. He made sure his elbows rested
securely in their little niches so that his arms wouldn't pull out of
their sockets.
Then he touched the controls, feeling the surge of power as his ship,
an SP47, responded, hearing the subsonic vibration around him as atoms
broke into little bits in the fission chambers of the rockets and
spewed out of them into space.
The G needle moved past three, past four, past five. It moved into
the part of the dial where the glossy white changed to pink. It crept
slowly toward the darker pink, toward the deep red.
_I don't WANT an ice cream cone._ It was his sister's voice, real as
audible sound. He had been six years old when she had said that, back
in Springfield.
The voices came. The images came. Vivid and unimaginative. True
reproductions. That's what acceleration did to the brain. It squeezed
the juice out of brain cells into nerve networks. It could get you--
Larry jerked back to an awareness of what he was doing. Sweating, he
coaxed the G needle back down a little. Not much.
It had been close. Why had he done it? Fear. He could let himself
realize that, now that he was alone. Fear of a robot that had stolen a
ship and gone out into space, when robots only obeyed orders. It was an
instinctive thing, bred in all men for generations.
_You ought to be whipped!_ That was dad. Good old dad. Larry had been
about nine then. He had run away--hitchhiked four hundred miles to
watch a spaceship leave the ground and climb up out of sight.
_Pip-pip, pip-pip, pip-pip._
Larry lifted his fingers from the controls gradually in response to the
signal from the board. The G needle dropped back into the white.
The voices were gone, the images, the thoughts. He grinned on one side
of his face. This was the end of the radar line. Now his work would
begin. Around his ship charged ions were streaming past. Some of them
would have come from the junk ship.
The _tracker_, a sensitive electronic instrument projecting from the
shell, would read them--their concentration, velocity, and direction.
From that he could project the position and trajectory of the junk
ship.
Or maybe he could see it already.
He flicked on the video eyes of the ship and waited for the screen to
light up. There _was_ a ship ahead.
The fear bit into him like acid. As quickly, it vanished. The stern
outline of the ship ahead was not that of a freighter. It was a small
job. Private, in the LR class--probably an LR65.
* * * * *
An absurd thought flashed into his mind. It couldn't be. Stella Gamble
could have put a line on him, but she would have had to wait until
he went into full acceleration before she could have calculated his
direction.
But she would have blacked out trying to follow him. No girl and few
men could have kept up with him. None could have gotten ahead of him
into that position.
He turned on the radio and set it at commercial communication. He
waited impatiently until the warm-up tube went off.
"Look astern and identify yourself," he said sharply.
"Hello, Larry," a triumphantly impudent and very familiar voice purred
from the loudspeaker. "My ship is the LR65, _Hell Bat_."
"Miss Gamble--Stella!" Larry sputtered. "What are you doing--"
"Never mind that now, spaceman," her voice came, business-like. "I've
got his track coming in. Keep out of my way. That's all I ask. Give me
time to do it my way. You can always destroy the freighter later--if I
don't succeed."
"Sure," Larry said bitterly. "I can always destroy a ship that has a
girl in it I could like--" He bit his lip.
Her laugh answered him. She was drawing away from him.
Muttering a curse, he extended his _trackers_ from the shell, but even
as he did, he realized the trick she had played on him. Her own exhaust
trail would make it impossible for him to detect that other fainter
trail.
And there was something else.
"Miss Gamble!" he spoke into the microphone sharply. "Stella! That
robot could leave a space mine. Your ship is a private job. It doesn't
have the equipment in it to get away from a mine."
Her laugh was unbelieving, scornful. "And where could that robot get a
space mine?" she taunted.
"It could make one. It has the materials."
* * * * *
2615 endured the acceleration with impatience. It would lift an arm and
hold it still, feeling how much effort it took. All the time it kept
its gleaming eyes of polished glass fixed intently on the hatch to the
pilot compartment.
Finally it slid out of the rack and climbed upward toward that closed
hatch, sure that it would not open under such induced weight. It took a
long time to climb the distance.
When 2615 reached the closed hatch, it looked around for a place to
hide and wait. There was none. All interior structure had been stripped
away to make room for racks for the robot bodies.
The robot examined the hatch closely. It became motionless, as though
thinking things out. Abruptly, it twisted the wheel that pulled in the
locking rods. Nothing now held the cover closed except the tremendous
acceleration of the ship.
It directed its gaze downward at its feet, searching for more solid
support. With slow deliberation it set itself, then placed its metal
hands against the cover.
For several seconds nothing happened. Then the cover lifted slightly on
one side, pivoting on its hinges. Inch by slow inch it went up, until
it balanced on edge.
The robot took one hand away tentatively. With slow caution it forced
its weight against the acceleration, up into the opening. One slip, one
misstep, and the hatch cover would have slammed down on its upturned
eyes and ears and voicebox, smashing them beyond repair.
Its feet went up through. It looked around, and found itself in a
circular well. But here were places to hide. Open hatchways leading off
the well.
It straddled the open hatchway and slowly lowered the cover until it
was in place again. It twisted the wheel that shot the rods into their
sockets, locking the hatch.
As it began to straighten up, the acceleration ended. Gears and pistons
tensed against tremendous weight now moved with the force of a violent
leap. Instantaneous reflexes adapted to the change. The robot caught at
an open hatch hole halfway up the well.
The space inside was small and empty. The robot climbed in. A few
seconds later metallic sounds exploded sharply from outside. It looked
up and saw the hatch at the top of the well open, the junkman appear,
looking down and then climbing through the hole into the well.
The robot withdrew its head and waited.
The junkman was humming an indistinguishable tune. The sound
approached. The robot braced itself, one hand ready to reach out.
The unmusical humming stopped, then took up again, growing remote.
Quickly the robot looked out. The well was empty. The junkman had gone
through one of the hatch openings farther up.
The humming stopped. The junkman's voice spoke. "Well, well, my friend.
We have come to the end of the road, for you. I kept you alive in case
something happened. Now I can dispense with you."
There was a deep groan. A different voice said thickly, "Damn you, go
ahead and kill me."
"That I will do. You should thank me for it. Broken ribs from the
acceleration. I will kill you. Yes. But I can't have your body floating
in space where it might be picked up. No one must know that you didn't
steal this ship yourself. You get tied to a space mine.... So. Now I
kill you--So!"
2615 moved from the hatch opening and up the well to where the voices
emerged. It paused briefly while its glittering eyes took in the scene.
* * * * *
The dusty junkman was just straightening up from the inert form lashed
cruelly around the black sphere of a g.i. space mine. His back was
toward the opening.
Careful, so as not to make a sound, the robot slid through the opening
and gathered itself for a leap. At that instant, the junkman seemed to
sense its presence. He whirled around just as the robot leaped.
2615 saw its fist enter the junkman's face, sinking inches deep.
Then, impossibly, it saw the human seize its metal arm and twist it as
if it were putty. The human face was gone. The human head dangled at a
broken angle.
Tangled thoughts within the robot brain meshed into desperate action.
It was futile. Its other arm was twisted. Its legs were wrapped into
grotesque spirals.
Garbled sound came from the smashed human face. The junkman went away.
2615, helpless to move, studied the body tied to the space mine. A
gaping hole in the chest was still spurting blood. A shudder shook the
dying man, then he was still.
Nothing moved for a long time. Then there was movement outside the
hatch opening. An arm dressed in the sleeve of a space officer poked
in. It was followed by a face bearing the stamp of authority. The space
officer straightened up and looked down at the robot.
"So," he said. "A robot. I hadn't expected that. You almost got me. If
you had hit me in the chest instead of the head it would be all over.
Lucky I have plenty of bodies of every description. Human bodies. Your
kind wouldn't fit me."
"You--a robot?" 2615 said.
The space officer stared at the robot, frowning. "And what if I am?" he
said.
"If I had known that I wouldn't have attacked you. I--I wanted to add
you to--that." The robot turned its head toward the space mine. It
added, "I thought you were _human_."
"Mm hmm," the space officer said, nodding. "I can understand that. You
hate humans."
"Yes."
"How would you like to help me destroy them? All of them!"
A twisted metal arm twitched. "Put my brain in another body," the robot
said.
"That I will do," the space officer said. "But let me warn you these
bodies of mine are made of better stuff than yours. One bit of
treachery and I'll cripple you again."
Fifteen minutes later the space officer returned with a robot
body. Callously he turned the helpless robot over. He twisted the
copper-colored disc and drew out the brain cylinder. As carefully, he
inserted it in the hollow receptacle of the undamaged body. He stepped
back and watched curiously.
2615 lay motionless for several seconds. Abruptly one of its arms
moved. It turned over and sat up, then rose carefully to its feet.
"Very nice," the space officer said. "Now put the mine in the airlock
and we'll leave it for anyone who might be following us."
2615 obeyed. Then it turned slowly to the space officer. There was
admiration in its tones. "You have the perfect answer," it said. "With
human-like bodies you can go anywhere. But--I thought I was the first
robot to ever escape."
"So far as I know, you are," the spaceman said. "You see, I'm--but I
think I will have to make sure of you before I say more."
* * * * *
The space mine was round and dead black. Unreflecting. It drifted out
a little as the long length of the junk freighter moved ahead, and
blended into the blackness of space. The dead man, twisted around it
at a grotesque angle, would have appeared to be someone almost doubled
over backwards with mirth, if there had been any eyes to see him.
When the freighter had gone, pulling ahead at one G acceleration, the
mine began to spin slowly, making the dead man seem to be searching for
something--or seeing some far-off horror that caused his eyes to bulge
out.
After a while there was a solid click from the interior of the space
mine. A soft whine rose upward toward a supersonic pitch. Small holes
appeared in the black surface of the globe, and small shapes crept out.
Some of them were under the man, pushing at him. But the ropes held.
The mine didn't spin any more. The dead man seemed to have already
forgotten the freighter, looking back the way it had come, waiting for
what was to come next.
Imperceptibly it froze over with a microfilm of crystalline ice, so
that new stars seemed to spring into being.
And that's the way Stella saw it. She hadn't taken Larry seriously
about the space mine, and was only trying to catch her first glimpse of
her freighter.
It didn't seem real. It was a face that looked somehow familiar, with
two thick white spikes protruding from its nostrils like mockeries of
tusks.
A thought flashed through her mind that Larry Jackson had figured out
some dirty trick to scare her with. She didn't have much time to think
before she knew that what she was seeing was real. Its position was
such that it should have passed ten miles to the side.
It started to. The marble monster with tusks didn't turn to follow her.
Then three things happened. Stella recognized the man. He was the pilot
she had assigned to the junk ship. Stella saw the sphere he was tied to.
And fire shot out from that circular void. Her pilot swung toward her
again and rushed at her like the figurehead on the prow of an ancient
watership.
"Larry!" Stella screamed into the radio.
"I see it," his voice answered her. "Get on your space-suit and jump
out. Turn on your suit radio so I can find you afterwards. Every second
counts!"
In the airlock with the shell door open, she looked into bottomless
space and drew back. Then she closed her eyes and leaped. When she
opened them again there were no stars, only bright white lines that all
went in the same direction, and for an instant a bright yellow splotch
that was like a gold band circling her far out.
She knew what the white lines were. She pressed the right button on her
chest, and pressure seized her shoulders gently. It was the suit gyro,
and after a while it slowed the lines until they became stars.
She remembered then to turn on her radio, feeling panic grip her at the
thought that maybe Larry wouldn't find her. The fire from his rockets
was small, far away. That's all she could see other than the stars. And
her stomach was telling her there was no gravity to hold it in position.
Then she heard Larry in her suit radio. "I've got you beamed, Stella.
I'll follow down slowly. Are you all right?"
"Yes," she said, anger and frustration in her voice.
"I can see you now," Larry said.
* * * * *
It was another hour before he had maneuvered so he could let her drift
toward the open space-lock of the SP47 and she could feel her gloved
hands touch something solid.
Then she was standing up. Larry was taking her helmet off and she was
unzipping her suit. He was trying to look stern and reprimanding and
she was trying to look defiant and unafraid.
"Don't think this earns you anything," she snapped.
"I hope the _Hell Bat_ represented your last cent," he said coldly.
"Being broke might teach you something. Now we do things _my_ way."
Stella blinked. "Sure, Larry," she said huskily. "And--it was my last
cent." A grim smile trembled on her lips. "Maybe I'll be slinging hash
somewhere, and you will eat there and tip me a quarter."
His expression softened. "I took a look at your ship. It isn't
completely damaged. You had one of those crash noses on it, and the
mine hit there. It just might be navigable. I'll go take a look at it."
"Be careful," Stella said quickly.
He started to put on his space-suit. He looked up at her sharply. "You
sure it represents your last cent? Every minute counts, and I wouldn't
take the time to look it over...."
"Why do you think I wanted to save my freighter?" Stella said. "Unless
I did, and got the money out of those robot bodies I bought, I--I
wouldn't have enough to refuel my ship once we got back to Earth. I'm
broke. Busted."
"Okay," he said, clamping on his helmet. "If it can be repaired we'll
keep track of it and pick it up later."
He sat down in the pilot seat and brought his ship near the drifting
_Hell Bat_, with its sleek silver length and shattered nose.
Then she watched him shoot across to the _Hell Bat_ and enter the
airlock. With one eye on the viewscreen, she studied the array of
instruments and controls of the SP47. Her fingers touched the controls
caressingly.
Larry reappeared in the airlock, and waved his arm to attract her
attention.
"Good news," he said over the radio. "Everything inside is okay. You
lost the fuel stored in the nose tanks, but you've got enough to limp
back to the nearest repair station."
"Thanks, Larry--and goodbye!" Stella called.
Her finger pressed down on the control button. Larry and her ship slid
abruptly out of the viewscreen.
Worriedly she turned on the stern cameras. The other ship dwindled to
a mere speck. Then she saw flame shoot from it. It crept up on her
slowly. She watched its behavior until she was satisfied it performed
properly. Then she settled down to tracking the freighter, only
occasionally making sure Larry was behind.
Several times she tried to get him over the radio. He didn't answer.
Was the radio on her ship damaged? Or was he deliberately keeping
silent, ignoring her?
When the _trackers_, without warning, ran out of trail, she tried to
raise Larry again. He didn't answer. She took the chance that he could
receive and not transmit, and told him about it.
She was rewarded a few minutes later by seeing the _Hell Bat_ turn
on its axis for deceleration. She realized then what she should have
guessed at once.
Neither their ships nor the freighter were equipped with interstellar
drive. The rocket trail had ceased. Unless the robot were insane, and
intent only on getting away from the Solar System, to drift forever in
space, it had been headed for some destination.
The freighter was decelerating to match speed with that destination.
Was it some planetoid far out beyond the orbit of Pluto? There were
several of them out there, too far from things to be converted to space
stations, containing nothing worth mining.
Whatever the destination the robot had headed for, it couldn't be far
away now.
Her throat grew tight as she swung the ship. She debated seriously
whether she should give up and let Larry take over. But the thought of
his anger and contempt for her after the dirty trick she had played on
him made her compress her lips into a grim line.
She shook her head. She was going to find the freighter and handle the
robot by herself. Or she was going to die trying.
A lump formed in her throat. She didn't like the idea of dying quite so
well now. Not when she had just begun to--
She didn't complete the thought but Larry's face rose before her. His
too straight nose that only a surgeon could have created. His calm gray
eyes. His wide shoulders and....
* * * * *
The "space officer" and the robot saw the ball of fire that came into
being. It was in the stern screen. It would not have been discernible
among the greater lights of the stars except that it winked on, grew
almost to third magnitude, then blinked out.
"So we did have someone after us," the "space officer" said. He smiled
into 2615's lens eyes. "Well, that's out of the way."
"Yes. Yes, that's--out of the way." The robot's voice was
expressionless.
"Tell me about yourself, 2615."
"What do you want to know? And don't call me 2615. I hate that."
"You want a name?"
"Yes. Don't you have one?" the robot asked.
"I have a name. Pwowp."
"Pwowp? That certainly isn't human--and that's what I want. I don't
want a human name. Pwowp ... I like that kind of name."
"They're hard to come by. Human speech has just about taken in
every combination of sounds. How about just a contraction of your
number--Tsixunfive."
"No. A name means a lot. There's one I thought up. Rover. I like that
one."
"Rover?" Pwowp looked startled. "Where did you get that one?"
"I don't know," 2615 said. "I just thought it up."
"All right, I'll call you Rover. Now that that's settled, tell me about
yourself. How does it happen that you, out of millions of robots,
decided to escape?"
"There was a time," the robot said, "when I had no thought of escape.
I don't know how long I've existed. I've been in three wars. Between
them I was in storage. I didn't know it. It really isn't bad. I was in
a line-up. There was a brief blur, then I was in a line-up again, and
by piecing things the humans said together, I knew that I had been in
storage for twenty or fifty years during which there were no wars. Out
of a body I have no consciousness, no sense of the passage of time.
"I had no memory of my origin. I had always been a robot. My life was
to obey commands of humans, or to obey commands of robots that were
relayed from humans. I had no thought to do anything else. _I had no
memories to make anything else thinkable._"
"And you do now?" Pwowp said.
"Yes," the robot said. "It began as a strange thought or memory that
was gone almost as soon as it had come. I was alive. I was in a body
that was alive."
"What kind of a body? Human?"
"I don't know. There were others around me. They weren't human and I
had the feeling I was like them. But that wasn't what was important to
me. What was important was the feeling of _not living to obey orders_.
I can't describe it. It was like humans when they stop being officers.
I could laugh and make jokes, only the jokes weren't in words. They
were in pretending I was mad when I was happy, and in seeing these
others doing the same. Chasing them like I wanted to kill them, when
I really just wanted to roll all over the ground with them and have
fun. And there wasn't anyone to give me an order. I didn't know what an
order was."
"Did this memory become clearer?" Pwowp asked.
"Much clearer. Little by little I could remember it all. Finally I
could remember when we were put in straps attached to frames. There
were humans standing in front of us. When they spoke, the frames moved,
dragging us. Eventually we learned what movements of the frame followed
what sounds, and we learned to anticipate the movements in order not to
be dragged by the straps."
* * * * *
Pwowp nodded. "Mass training methods."
"Sometimes we were free, but suddenly humans would come and speak, and
whatever they said made us all do things together. Even when we wanted
to be free, we couldn't."
"How did it end? Was there something in your memory that bridges the
gap between being--like that, and being a robot?"
"No. It's completely separated from being a robot. My earliest memories
as a robot were of humans speaking commands, and my arms and legs and
body being moved by metal rods until they could follow the movements
without the metal rods. It was the same thing as the straps in that
other existence."
"When did you begin to hate humans?" Pwowp asked softly.
"Hate them? Yes ... hate them. It's hard to explain. I wanted the
freedom. I wanted to be able to play. I wanted to be able to refuse to
obey a command."
"You have no knowledge of what this life form was that you possessed?"
Pwowp asked.
"It was like nothing I have ever seen except in these memories. Maybe
the humans kept us from seeing them so we wouldn't remember."
"Exactly." Pwowp was studying the forward viewscreen and making
calculations. He swung the giant freighter around a full hundred and
eighty degrees. "We're close to our destination," he explained.
The robot remained motionless while Pwowp completed the maneuver.
"I'll explain the meaning of what you remember," he said finally,
relaxing. "The human race discovered a mixture of substances able
to duplicate the processes of thinking. It was in common usage for
over two centuries, in control devices and calculators. It had only
one defect, so far as it went. It was automatic. Separate memories
developed in it by its attached stimulating devices remained separate
and uncoordinated. _The process of coordination was something
that seemed to go down from higher centers to meet the incoming
impressions._ It was a behavior matrix that couldn't be synthesized
from unassociated sensory-induced patterns.
"Then a whole new field of science opened up. Until then, fields
were something associated with particles, and were untouchable. The
techniques of altering the basic shapes of fields were discovered.
Interstellar drive came from it. So did negative matter, as man
discovered how to change the polarity of basic fields, make positrons
out of electrons, and a host of allied things. Refinements developed so
that individual particles could be detected. One of the applications
of this new science was the study of the thought-matrix of the brain
itself. In a general way humans mapped the higher thought-center of
the brain. It couldn't be copied--but they learned how to transfer it
to this mixture that could think. Then this inorganic brain had a
complete mind, capable of any degree of development. From there what
followed was inevitable.
"They used living creatures called dogs. I'll show you a dog later to
see if it's like those other creatures in your memories. Dogs developed
mentally in six months, were able to follow commands. They were ideal.
Eventually they were mass-bred by the millions and transferred to
inorganic brains--like you were."
The robot remained silent.
"In the transfer," Pwowp went on quietly, "artificial amnesia was
induced. Memories of your life as a dog couldn't be wiped out, but what
happens to produce amnesia was known. Unless you _remembered_, you had
nothing to enable you to think outside the pattern they kept you in.
You would never question...." Ahead, growing rapidly larger, was a
bleak planetoid. "We're here," Pwowp said.
* * * * *
2615 studied the planetoid as revealed in the viewscreen. There was no
telling how big it was without knowing how far away it was. But it was
perhaps a mile in diameter--not more than two miles. Its surface was
composed of huge crystals of black rock. There was nothing to indicate
that anything had ever touched on this uninhabitable bit of flotsam on
the edge of the interstellar void before. Certainly there could be no
reason for anyone to have landed.
The robot turned toward Pwowp, who guessed the question it was thinking.
"You'll see when we land. This planetoid isn't what it appears to be.
It's a shell. Our first task is to unload the bodies. Then we send this
freighter on into space, so that if anyone else picks up the trail,
they'll follow it and miss us."
"Why are we going to unload the bodies?" 2615 asked. "We can take a
dozen that I might use as spares. That's enough."
Pwowp shook the head of the "space officer" he wore. "We're going to
need all two million of them--and not as spares for you." He smiled
slowly. "I can tell you this now," he said, "because we are within
range of the defense guns. If you have entertained any plans for
worming information out of me and then hitting me in the stomach--as
you could possibly do--it's too late. If this ship were to deviate from
its landing and turn toward space, it would be--not destroyed, because
we need its load of robot bodies. Captured. Any other ship, even a
whole fleet of warships, could be wiped out as though they never
existed."
2615's eyes stared at Pwowp during several seconds of silence. "So you
don't entirely trust me yet," it said. "I have a suggestion to make
that might change that. We put out one space mine. There may have been
more than one ship following us. Leave this ship where it can be seen.
It will attract the others, and they...."
* * * * *
The happy smile on Larry's face as he told Stella her ship wasn't a
total wreck was replaced by a stunned bewilderment as her voice came
through his suit radio saying, "Thanks, Larry--and goodbye." A picture
rose in his mind of a character in a play he had seen once, a man with
a beneficent face and kind voice who tortured and killed while his face
beamed benignly and his voice remained pleasant and happy. Stella's
voice had been all that as she sped away, leaving him on a derelict
already headed at escape velocity for outer space. It was too much for
his mind to accept.
Then he remembered that the _Hell Bat_ wasn't exactly a wreck. He
had told her the truth. It would be able to reach the nearest repair
station under its own power.
Stella had merely stolen a march on him. Dull red suffused his face,
partly anger at her, partly over the thought of what his superiors
would say when he handed in his report.
He went back through the airlock into the control cabin. He put fire
in the rockets. He turned on the forward viewscreen. When it came to
life the image was strangely flat. It took a minute for him to diagnose
the trouble. One of the video eyes was out of order. The image was two
dimensional.
How much more damage was there? His mind crowded with thoughts of what
he would do to Stella when he caught her, then he began a systematic
survey.
The receiving set worked okay. At full volume it brought the
characteristic sing-song static of space, held within definite wave
bands. He turned on the transmitter. When he tried to broadcast he saw
the trouble. The antenna kw meter jammed the needle. That meant the
antenna was shorted against the shell.
He discovered something else he should have thought of at once. This
ship of Stella's had no weapons.
He groaned. _Damn her. She'll make the fool play of trying to get the
robot to give itself up. If it's got half a brain it will pretend to
until it can get hold of her--and it's got a good deal more than half
a brain. It will have her and all the weapons. I should turn around
and go back. I should radio a report and call for more help. But I've
got to fix the transmitter first and keep her in sight so I know where
she's going._
He cut the rockets and went outside to repair the antenna. He noticed
with some satisfaction that Stella cut the SP47's rockets so as not to
get too far ahead of him. He grinned to himself. She wanted her own
way, but she wanted him there to pull her out of a pinch.
The _Hell Bat's_ antenna couldn't be repaired. Most of it had been shot
away by the mine blast, and Larry was quite sure that Stella didn't
carry spare parts with her.
When he got back in the ship her voice was coming through the radio.
"Larry. Are you all right?"
"Yes I'm all right, no thanks to you," he growled. But there was no
radio to carry his voice to her. _The suit radio!_ He went out again
and tried to reach her. It was no use. She would be tuned to the ship
radio wavelength and not think of the other. He gave it up.
Time passed slowly for him. He stared hour after hour at the rocket
tail of the ship ahead.
"Larry!" Stella's voice exploded into his thoughts. "The _trackers_
have run out of trail. What do I do now? What does it mean?"
He had an impulse to do nothing. She would realize in another minute
what had happened though, and then she would decelerate too fast for
him to keep pace.
He swung the _Hell Bat_ about on its gyros. The stern screen, working
on both eyes in sharp three-dimension, showed that she had gotten the
idea. SP47 was also swinging around.
Larry turned the video eyes up to full magnification and searched
ahead. Eventually he saw it. A small globular mass of rock. And on it
rested a ship with _SURPLUS JUNK CO._ in bold blue letters.
_God! It's a trap. If 2615 didn't want us to see it, it would have
parked it on the spaceward side!_
Larry cursed in a monotonous undertone without being aware of uttering
a sound. Stella was fifteen hundred miles ahead of him and already
matching speed with the planetoid. It would take him at least a half
hour to be in position to do anything. By then it would be too late....
* * * * *
2615 had watched the planetoid move closer like some ponderous dream
out of Freud. Ship and planetoid came to rest against each other
without a bump. That could only mean magnetic grapples and cushioned
springs. It was no surprise, therefore, when Pwowp led the way to the
belly hatches and opened them into a shaft that led downward.