in their hands.
"Will we get to see any of this top secret research?" Stella asked the
nearest quietly smiling young man.
"I doubt it," he said. "Of course, the war's over now. We don't know
what orders we'll get concerning you two."
"What became of the robot?" Larry asked. "I hope you destroyed him the
minute you could."
"No. It should be here any minute now, Larry," the quietly smiling
young man said. He was holding his drink without having touched it.
Larry looked around the large room. It seemed almost crowded now with
quietly smiling young men who held their tall cocktail glasses without
sipping them. And all the quietly smiling young men were watching him
and Stella.
The moment seemed to lift out of time and suspend itself on the peak of
a crest, stationary. There was no fear, nor even any realization that
anything was wrong. Stella, beside him, was saying something happy and
gay, but his ears weren't listening. It was one of those moments in
time where the past is like a page you have just read, and the future
is on a page about to be turned. You hold the continuity, even the
sense of half a phrase. Your thoughts, your emotions, pause for what is
to come.
* * * * *
A door opened fifty feet away. The robot entered the room. Its two lens
eyes were fixed on them. Its microphone wands slanted slightly toward
them. It took a few steps with the casual self-assurance of a man.
The quietly smiling young men were still looking at Larry. They seemed
indifferent about the presence of the robot.
Then one of them near Larry said, "We were going to destroy you, of
course. We had no use for you. However, 2615 talked us out of it. He
seems to have a great deal of resentment in his make-up. I think he
wants to take it out on you two."
And the robot stepped toward them until it could have reached out and
crushed them.
"_Torture them!_" It was a hoarse sadistic whisper escaping quietly
smiling lips.
The robot turned its sensory assembly to look at the source of the
voice.
"I'll torture them in my own way, Pwowp," it said. "I want them to last
a long time. A very long time."
"What are you?" Larry's voice was hoarse. "Can humans stoop so low that
they let this happen?"
"Humans?" the robot said. "Look. I'll show you."
It reached out to the nearest of the young men. The quiet smile
remained on the young man's face as 2615's metal fingers wrapped around
the head and crushed it. Wires and plastic tubing and colorless fluid
squeezed through the metal fingers. The robot withdrew its hand.
The man with the crushed face didn't scream nor fall down. He stood
there, one hand brushing casually at the damage. Then he turned and
made his way toward a door, avoiding obstacles as though he still could
see. _And he should have been dead._
"Robots," 2615 said. It reached out slowly toward Larry. Its metal
fingers circled his throat, but without exerting pressure. "They have
given me dogs. Puppies. Some of them are--like I was. I want to be with
them all the time. But every day I will come to you. Larry? Stella?
Human names. Humans. I don't want you to die. Not for a long time."
The metal fingers were withdrawn from Larry's neck, leaving discolored
bruises.
2615 turned abruptly and strode from the room.
Very slowly, Larry felt life flow into his body once more. He reached
up and touched his neck tenderly. Out of the corner of his eye he
caught a sudden movement, and stooped to catch Stella as she fainted.
"She will be all right?" a quietly modulated voice asked.
Larry jerked his head around. One of the quietly smiling young men was
standing over them solicitously.
"She has only fainted? If you can carry her, come with me. I want to
show you to your quarters now. I hope they will be quite comfortable.
We want you to feel at home."
* * * * *
Stella recovered consciousness. She and Larry looked at each other,
clung to each other in wordless desperation. Then there was that
moment, that pause.
Then, "I'm sorry, Larry," Stella said.
Larry shrugged. He looked around at the simulated Cypress walls,
the comfortable surroundings. "This has gone beyond just one robot
escaping," Larry said. "Those others, their weapon that destroyed your
ship without a trace. It's invasion from some other galaxy. They're
planning on destroying the human race."
And then Stella cried. Larry watched her, a worried frown forming a
crease between his puzzled gray eyes. He reached out and touched her
face with his fingers. "What is it?"
"Rover," she said, sobbing softly. "I let a monster loose on mankind."
* * * * *
The sensory assembly of robot 532-03-2615 moved slightly. A metal arm
started to lift, then paused. The eye lenses moved to focus on the arm.
There were two sleeping puppies sprawled across it.
A low rumble came from the voice box under the two crystal lenses.
Slowly the metal arm moved, dislodging the puppies. There were others
sprawled in sleep against him. All were bloodhound puppies six weeks
old. One of them whimpered in reaction to some puppy dream.
2615 stood up. It opened a small door in the lower left hand corner
of its box-shaped torso and brought out cleaning cloths. For the next
fifteen minutes it carefully polished and cleaned every square inch of
its surface.
It bent down. Its metal fingers softly stroked the back of one of the
sleeping puppies. Another low growl came from its voice box. It went
across the yard to the gate. There it paused and looked back.
Suddenly from its voice box a sharp _Yip!_ erupted. The puppies jerked
into instant wakening. They looked around, cocking their ears for a
repetition of the sound.
Then they saw the robot. They scampered with clumsy haste toward it,
their shrill yapping filling the air.
2615 closed the gate and strode down the lane toward the ladder
leading to the grav-cylinder exit. Behind it, the bloodhound puppies
jumped against the gate, trying to follow. One by one they desisted.
But their eyes followed the moving metal figure until it vanished
through the door half way up to that ceiling where other dogs walked
upside down.
The robot rode the travelwalk to the asteroid shell. It was met by
Pwowp and two others.
"The humans are still asleep," Pwowp said.
"I'd hoped they would be," 2615 said. "Yesterday they were in a state
of mind characteristic of humans when they have been confronted with
something frightening. Shock. There would have been no satisfaction in
doing anything to them then. Did they sleep well?"
"Yes. The observers on duty report that they slept face to face, their
arms around one another. They have been asleep for nine hours."
"Their arms around each other ..." 2615 said thoughtfully.
When they reached the door to the room where Larry and Stella were
imprisoned there were four others waiting for them.
"You may go in alone," one of them said. "We can watch and listen from
out here."
A low growl was 2615's answer. It stepped to the door and entered.
Stella and Larry were still asleep. For several minutes the robot
remained motionless after it had closed the door. There was no sound
but the soft breathing of the two humans. Once the robot let its
lens eyes rove about the room, pausing here and there at signs of
observation panels that would have been undetectable to human eyes.
Then its eyes turned toward the two sleeping humans again.
Larry moved a little, the rhythm of his slow breathing changing. A
deep rumbling growl emerged from the robot's voice box. Larry sat up,
opening his eyes at the same time. His eyes went wider and round at the
sight of the robot.
"What was that?" Stella's sleepy voice sounded. Then she too was
sitting erect, her eyes fixed on the unmoving robot.
Another growl sounded. The metal robot moved toward the bed. "You like
to be in each other's arms?" it asked. "We can't have that. You did not
ask me if I would like to be a robot."
Larry and Stella moved back on the bed, too frozen with deep rooted
terror to rise.
* * * * *
With a lightning move too swift to be evaded the robot reached out and
seized Larry by the right arm, lifting him to his feet at the edge of
the bed.
"I could squeeze with this one hand and crush the bone in your arm,"
2615 said, "but it might be too shattered to knit. I will do it this
way so it can be set and heal."
Its other hand wrapped around the forearm just below the elbow. Larry
started to struggle. He screamed in pain. There was an audible snap.
His arm bent grotesquely. The robot released him and he stumbled
backwards onto the bed, his face pale and dotted with sweat.
The lens eyes fixed on Stella.
"No!" she shuddered. "No!"
She was at the far edge of the bed. With terror animating her muscles,
she leaped to the floor and ran. Almost too swiftly for the eye to
follow, the robot reached her and metal fingers gripped her arm.
"No! Please! Please don't hurt me." She was pleading. "I'm a woman--"
"A human," the robot corrected. "Do you know the feeling of pain, of
hopelessness? You will learn."
His other hand gripped her arm.
Larry leaped from the bed and attacked, beating futilely on the metal
body with his good arm. The robot brushed him away with a light shove
that sent him sprawling across the room. He screamed as his broken arm
twisted in the fall.
Again the robot gripped Stella's forearm with both metal hands, and
bent carefully, slowly. Her mouth opened wide, and a shrill scream of
pain erupted. The robot's hands twisted abruptly. The arm bent visibly,
then angled sharply halfway between wrist and elbow.
2615 released her and stepped away. It surveyed what it had done,
silently. Still silently, it strode to the door and went out. Two young
men with quiet smiles entered the room.
"Your arms are broken?" one of them said sympathetically. "Think
nothing of it. We will set them so expertly that in a few weeks they
will be as good as new. Please come with us to one of our laboratories.
We will have to examine the fractures by X-ray before we try to set the
bones. It should prove interesting ... to us...."
* * * * *
On the travelwalk back to the grav-cylinder Pwowp regarded 2615
thoughtfully. "I doubt if they could stand much of that," he said
abruptly. "I had expected skin abrasions. Bruised flesh."
2615's lens eyes regarded him without expression. "There was a
purpose," it said. "Today they would have begun their plans for escape.
Humans are very clever. Now they will be thinking of other things. It
will be two weeks at least before they can think of escape."
"And the torture you plan for tomorrow?" Pwowp asked.
A deep rumble sounded. "Tomorrow they will wait for me in vain. The
terror of anticipation. It will be enough."
"I'm glad I'm not a human," Pwowp said thoughtfully.
"That you aren't may be unfortunate," 2615 said slowly.
Pwowp looked startled. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply.
"Humans are instinctively smart. I would like to know your plans. They
may be impossible of success, or there may be little flaws of reasoning
that do not take human reactions into account." 2615's tones were calm
and confident. Factual.
"They will succeed," Pwowp said, "but I see no harm in getting your
opinion since you will play a part in them.
"We have laid our plans very carefully," Pwowp said. "We have
considered every angle. The interstellar war among humans is over. The
vast fleets of the Federation are returning quickly, and as quickly as
they return the robots are demobilized, their brains put into storage
until the time they are needed to fight for the humans again."
"Yes," 2615 said.
"There is one fleet that will return to the Solar System after all
others have been dismantled. It is the one Earth is waiting for before
it makes its triumphal celebration. The _Alpha Aquilae_ fleet. It
returns last because it comes the greatest distance. Almost fifteen
light years at the standard interstellar speed of nine times the speed
of light. There are twenty thousand and eighty ships of all classes
remaining in that fleet, according to the data flashed ahead by
subfield communication."
"Which is instantaneous," 2615 said. "And when that fleet has been
demobilized?"
"Demobilized?" Pwowp shook his head. "It has already been destroyed
completely, and so swiftly that there was no time for it to report
being attacked."
"Then how ..." 2615 said, its voice drifting off in bewilderment.
"On the flagship of that fleet was a prisoner. Vilbis, the dictator who
masterminded the enemy in the war. He is being brought for trial in the
traditional war crimes court."
"These are things I didn't know," 2615 said. "I was a minor officer, in
contact only with my superiors, with no complete information on things
other than my duties."
"When the fleet arrives--"
"But you said it was destroyed."
"The fleet is _scheduled_ to arrive June eleventh of next year. It
is planned, when it arrives, for the entire fleet to go into defense
formation about the Earth. Then the flagship will land and turn
Vilbis over to the Federation Court. After that big display of might,
demobilization of this last fleet will be started."
"I think I am beginning to see your plan," 2615 said.
"It's very simple. We destroyed that fleet--but not before we took
three-dimensional patterns of every ship. At this moment a detachment
of our own fleet has taken up the path and schedule of the destroyed
Alpha Aquilae fleet, and workers are disguising our ships so that from
the outside they will be exactly like the human ships. And we have
Vilbis."
"Then you will succeed in approaching the Earth and forming a defense
sphere around the planet," 2615 said. "At a signal you will use your
weapons to destroy Earth's defenses. I don't see how you can lose."
"You are forgetting something," Pwowp said. "This is a war to free the
enslaved robots. We think it only right for the robots to bear the
brunt of the initial attack. We've worked that into the time schedule.
You've seen the two million puppies ready for training. For this
initial operation it will be necessary to train them exactly as humans
have done. You are to carry them through their initial conditioning
to discipline and obedience to orders. When they are transferred to
robot brains we will complete the training. Then with the robots ready
for duty, we will leave this base in our two ships, go out toward
Alpha Aquilae far enough to give us time, then start back, going into
space drive in the midst of the disguised fleet. The robots will then
take their places on the ships of the disguised fleet. It will drop
out of space-drive on schedule and do exactly what Earth expects it to
do--until the signal."
"What of your own personnel already on those disguised ships?"
"They will be transferred to other ships. Those ships will arrive in
the Solar System on a schedule that allows for the capture of the
Earth. Our millions will then occupy the Earth and destroy the humans.
After that the robots will be mobilized once again and given their
blocked off memory, their freedom. When we have done this we will
depart for our own star cluster. You robots will be able to conquer
everything held by humans elsewhere and exterminate them."
* * * * *
2615 remained motionless for several minutes. Then:
"You of course preserved the lives of the two humans of the Alpha
Aquilae fleet?"
"Of course not. And Vilbis is to be destroyed as soon as he fulfills
his purpose."
"I'll tell you what Vilbis already knows then," 2615 said. "Your plan
is doomed to failure. Your weapons may destroy some of the Earth's
land-based weapons, but not all. Those you don't destroy will wipe out
this disguised fleet before it can escape."
"But Earth won't suspect--"
"Of course they won't suspect. They'll _know_. Without human commanders
aboard, they'll know. Robots could not go through such a maneuver
without human commanders to give the orders--_unless there were at
least one robot like me_."
"Then I'll command the fleet. I had planned that anyway."
"It wouldn't work. The living voice can't be imitated so as to get
past the sound analyzers. Humans must be on the flagship. Don't you
understand? There must be two humans besides Vilbis, who must be a
prisoner. Is he in with you on this?"
"He thinks he is." Pwowp smiled broadly.
"Then there remains only...." 2615 turned to look back the way they had
come.
"The two humans," Pwowp said, nodding. "Can they be made to say the
right words, do the right things?"
2615 looked down at his metal fingers, slowly curving them into claws.
"They will do what I ask them to do--by that time," it said.
Pwowp regarded the robot curiously. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I broke their arms today. That can be the beginning of their
conditioning. Pain. Torture. They will plead. Sometimes when they plead
I will make them do things, and as a reward I will withhold pain and
torture. In the end they will be beyond thinking. They won't consider
that one word from them might ruin the plan. To keep from feeling more
pain--ever to delay pain for another second--they will gladly sacrifice
the entire human race. _That is conditioning._"
"Then nothing can go wrong. We will have conditioned the robots for the
one specific operation. Our fleet will remain in space until you and I
have accomplished our task. Then we will send the signal for it to come
in and occupy the Earth. When it's all over you will undoubtedly be the
leader of the new race--the robots of Earth."
"The leader," 2615 said. "Yes. The Leader."
Pwowp watched 2615 ride the travelwalk out to the grav-cylinder, and
there was a quiet smile of contentment hovering on his lips.
"Yes," he murmured. "Nothing can go wrong. Once your robots have
destroyed Earth's defenses and we have taken over, wiping out man, we
will turn our weapons upward and destroy you!"
But 2615 didn't hear his words. 2615 was already entering the
grav-cylinder. The barking of thousands of dogs was in its ear. It was
music....
* * * * *
Metal hands that look much like skeletons of human hands. Metal fingers
that hover over you and dart out faster than you can jerk--but you jerk
anyway. You cringe, looking at the staring lenses, looking at the metal
fingers. Symbols.
Multiply the week by four and a fraction. A month. Multiply that by
ten. Ten months....
2615 looked down at Larry. Larry, trembling violently, unable to stand
or even to crouch, looked up at the lenses, the fingers of metal. Near
by, Stella sat on the floor, her fists doubled up in her eyes to blot
out light.
"Today," 2615 said, "I want you to do something. If you do it I won't
touch you. Do you understand, Larry? If you do what I ask, I won't
touch you. I won't _hurt_ you today."
Numb hope molded itself in the pallid flesh around Larry's eyes. His
mouth opened to speak, but he couldn't speak.
"You must answer me, Larry. You must always speak."
"I understand you," Larry said, his voice weak.
"You know better than that," 2615 said. "Put emotion into it.
Enthusiasm. Must we go through this every time? Smile. Smile with your
eyes too. Speak with enthusiasm."
Desperation became a visible force, molding Larry's lips into a cheery
smile, steadying his voice and giving it the overtones of enthusiasm.
"I understand you."
"Good. I must always have obedience. Now--you must break Stella's
little finger. It won't be difficult for--"
"No!" The scream of horror and revulsion and hate exploded shrilly.
"But you must. Then you won't be hurt today. And I won't hurt Stella.
If you refuse, I'll break your wrist again and I'll not only break
Stella's little finger, but also her wrist. You will be _saving_ her
pain, Larry."
"Please, Larry darling," Stella's voice came from far away, low and
throaty, infinitely weary. "It won't be as bad--for you to do it."
Larry's haggard eyes looked at Stella's bowed head, turned to look up
at the two round lenses, turned away to look at the five human-like
faces that wore interested smiles, polite smiles, and behind which
lurked neither pleasure nor sadistic glee nor any other emotion that
could be sensed.
He looked back--and Stella's hand was before him, metal fingers
circling the wrist gently. Her head was turned away, her eyes clenched
tightly closed.
His eyes watched his hands with unmasked horror while they explored the
way to do it, then bent her finger back. With a spasmodic jerk he broke
it, feeling its grating snap. In the same motion he threw himself away,
pressing his face into the thick carpeting on the floor, pounding his
fists against the floor, screaming, "Oh God--why? Why? WHY?"
2615 released Stella's hand and strode out the door.
"We are getting quite expert, Stella," a quietly smiling young man said
in a friendly conversational tone. "Anatomy has become quite a study
for us, these past months. Hold still please while I examine the extent
of fracture."
2615 closed the door and turned to Pwowp. "You see?" it said. "Is there
any doubt now?"
"None," Pwowp said. "That must be the last, however. There will just be
time for it to knit."
"The robots are ready?" 2615 asked.
"Yes. In five more days we load them into ships and depart for outer
space. It is all planned, down to the smallest fraction of a second."
Pwowp pulled absently on his lip in a practiced gesture. "It has really
been enlightening, this study of conditioning. Conditioning is such a
powerful instrument. Conditioning of humans until they will do anything
to avoid pain. Conditioning of robots to unquestioning obedience.
Remarkable...."
* * * * *
The robots rode the travelwalks like giant toys on an assembly line
belt. They disappeared into the two giant ships and laid themselves
down in careful stacks until they were piled from bulkhead to bulkhead,
from shell to shell. There wasn't an inch to spare when it was done,
because these were warships, not freighters.
There were no more robots outside the ships in this vast spherical
darkness of the heart of the asteroid, only half illuminated by
occasional directed beams.
Then space-suited figures appeared, riding the travelwalk to one of the
ships. Two of them stayed close together, holding to each other. The
rest surrounded these two, guarding them. They disappeared into the
ship.
Last, a man and a robot appeared at the edge of the travelwalk. The
robot was 2615. The man was a robot shell, and within it was Pwowp.
"I feel quite satisfied," Pwowp said. "Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Every possible angle has been taken into consideration--even the angle
of treachery from you."
"From me?" 2615's voice held surprise.
"Of course." Pwowp's voice was emotionless. "That is why we didn't let
you take part in the training of the robots after they were activated.
They have been drilled in the one giant operation. Each of the two
million robots will do its part like a smoothly functioning machine.
And I give the orders, taking into account possible variations in
timing due to special factors we can't anticipate now."
"But that was necessary," 2615 said. "The operation would be impossible
otherwise. My attention must be concentrated almost entirely on the two
humans so they do nothing to create suspicion. They will be dressed in
full uniform. They will be observed by unsuspicious eyes over video
beams. At the same time Vilbis will be seen. He will be the focus of
attention. And you have promised me Vilbis--afterwards."
They stepped onto the travelwalk. They entered the ship where Larry
and Stella had been taken. The travelwalks were dropped away. A large
part of the planetoid surface folded inward to make the two ships an
avenue of departure. Like silent ghosts they began to move....
At the controls of one of the ships Pwowp watched the stars come into
view and the lips of the planetoid opening approach, then go by.
On his lips was a quiet smile of content. He was thinking. When it was
over and all the other robots were destroyed, there would be only 2615.
It would be fun--much fun--just before 2615 was destroyed, to step out
of his human-like body and let the robot see him--in the flesh. His
beautiful body which would, he was quite sure, seem horrible beyond the
wildest nightmare to humans and dogs alike.
* * * * *
A rendezvous in interstellar space. Changing from space-drive to
rockets, then back to space-drive, the transfer signaled by a science
and technology unknown to humans. Robots leaping across eighty
battleships armed with weapons man had no defense against. Then--