_The Last Evolution_
By JOHN W. CAMPBELL, Jr.
I am the last of my type existing today in all the Solar System. I, too,
am the last existing who, in memory, sees the struggle for this System,
and in memory I am still close to the Center of Rulers, for mine was the
ruling type then. But I will pass soon, and with me will pass the last
of my kind, a poor inefficient type, but yet the creators of those who
are now, and will be, long after I pass forever.
So I am setting down my record on the mentatype.
* * * * *
It was 2538 years After the Year of the Son of Man. For six centuries
mankind had been developing machines. The Ear-apparatus was discovered
as early as seven hundred years before. The Eye came later, the Brain
came much later. But by 2500, the machines had been developed to think,
and act and work with perfect independence. Man lived on the products of
the machine, and the machines lived to themselves very happily, and
contentedly. Machines are designed to help and cooperate. It was easy to
do the simple duties they needed to do that men might live well. And men
had created them. Most of mankind were quite useless, for they lived in
a world where no productive work was necessary. But games, athletic
contests, adventure--these were the things they sought for their
pleasure. Some of the poorer types of man gave themselves up wholly to
pleasure and idleness--and to emotions. But man was a sturdy race, which
had fought for existence through a million years, and the training of a
million years does not slough quickly from any form of life, so their
energies were bent to mock battles now, since real ones no longer
existed.
Up to the year 2100, the numbers of mankind had increased rapidly and
continuously, but from that time on, there was a steady decrease. By
2500, their number was a scant two millions, out of a population that
once totaled many hundreds of millions, and was close to ten billions in
2100.
Some few of these remaining two millions devoted themselves to the
adventure of discovery and exploration of places unseen, of other worlds
and other planets. But fewer still devoted themselves to the highest
adventure, the unseen places of the mind. Machines--with their
irrefutable logic, their cold preciseness of figures, their tireless,
utterly exact observation, their absolute knowledge of mathematics--they
could elaborate any idea, however simple its beginning, and reach the
conclusion. From any three facts they even then could have built in mind
all the Universe. Machines had imagination of the ideal sort. They had
the ability to construct a necessary future result from a present fact.
But Man had imagination of a different kind, theirs was the illogical,
brilliant imagination that sees the future result vaguely, without
knowing the why, nor the how, and imagination that outstrips the machine
in its preciseness. Man might reach the conclusion more swiftly, but the
machine always reached the conclusion eventually, and it was always the
correct conclusion. By leaps and bounds man advanced. By steady,
irresistible steps the machine marched forward.
Together, man and the machine were striding through science
irresistibly.
Then came the Outsiders. Whence they came, neither machine nor man ever
learned, save only that they came from beyond the outermost planet, from
some other sun. Sirius--Alpha Centauri--perhaps! First a thin scoutline
of a hundred great ships, mighty torpedoes of the void a thousand
kilads[1] in length, they came.
And one machine returning from Mars to Earth was instrumental in its
first discovery. The transport-machine's brain ceased to radiate its
sensations, and the control in old Chicago knew immediately that some
unperceived body had destroyed it. An investigation machine was
instantly dispatched from Deimos, and it maintained an acceleration of
one thousand units.[2] They sighted ten huge ships, one of which was
already grappling the smaller transport-machine. The entire fore-section
had been blasted away.
The investigation machine, scarcely three inches in diameter, crept into
the shattered hull and investigated. It was quickly evident that the
damage was caused by a fusing ray.
Strange life-forms were crawling about the ship, protected by flexible,
transparent suits. Their bodies were short, and squat, four-limbed and
evidently powerful. They, like insects, were equipped with a thick,
durable exoskeleton, horny, brownish coating that covered arms and legs
and head. Their eyes projected slightly, protected by horny protruding
walls--eyes that were capable of movement in every direction--and there
were three of them, set at equal distances apart.
The tiny investigation machine hurled itself violently at one of the
beings, crashing against the transparent covering, flexing it, and
striking the being inside with terrific force. Hurled from his position,
he fell end over end across the weightless ship, but despite the blow,
he was not hurt.
The investigator passed to the power room ahead of the Outsiders, who
were anxiously trying to learn the reason for their companion's plight.
[Illustration: Illustrated by MOREY]
Directed by the Center of Rulers, the investigator sought the power
room, and relayed the control signals from the Rulers' brains. The
ship-brain had been destroyed, but the controls were still readily
workable. Quickly they were shot home, and the enormous plungers shut. A
combination was arranged so that the machine, as well as the
investigator and the Outsiders, were destroyed. A second investigator,
which had started when the plan was decided on, had now arrived. The
Outsider's ship nearest the transport-machine had been badly damaged,
and the investigator entered the broken side.
* * * *
The scenes were, of course, remembered by the memory-minds back on Earth
tuned with that of the investigator. The investigator flashed down
corridors, searching quickly for the apparatus room. It was soon seen
that with them the machine was practically unintelligent, very few
machines of even slight intelligence being used.
Then it became evident by the excited action of the men of the ship,
that the presence of the investigator had been detected. Perhaps it was
the control impulses, or the signal impulses it emitted. They searched
for the tiny bit of metal and crystal for some time before they found
it. And in the meantime it was plain that the power these Outsiders used
was not, as was ours of the time, the power of blasting atoms, but the
greater power of disintegrating matter. The findings of this tiny
investigating machine were very important.
Finally they succeeded in locating the investigator, and one of the
Outsiders appeared armed with a peculiar projector. A bluish beam
snapped out, and the tiny machine went blank.
The fleet was surrounded by thousands of the tiny machines by this time,
and the Outsiders were badly confused by their presence, as it became
difficult to locate them in the confusion of signal impulses. However,
they started at once for Earth.
The science-investigators had been present toward the last, and I am
there now, in memory with my two friends, long since departed. They were
the greatest human science-investigators--Roal, 25374 and Trest, 35429.
Roal had quickly assured us that these Outsiders had come for invasion.
There had been no wars on the planets before that time in the direct
memory of the machines, and it was difficult that these who were
conceived and built for cooperation, helpfulness utterly dependent on
cooperation, unable to exist independently as were humans, that these
life-forms should care to destroy, merely that they might possess. It
would have been easier to divide the works and the products. But--life
alone can understand life, so Roal was believed.
From investigations, machines were prepared that were capable of
producing considerable destruction. Torpedoes, being our principal
weapon, were equipped with such atomic explosives as had been developed
for blasting, a highly effective induction-heat ray developed for
furnaces being installed in some small machines made for the purpose in
the few hours we had before the enemy reached Earth.
In common with all life-forms, they were able to withstand only very
meager earth-acceleration. A range of perhaps four units was their
limit, and it took several hours to reach the planet.
I still believe the reception was a warm one. Our machines met them
beyond the orbit of Luna, and the directed torpedoes sailed at the
hundred great ships. They were thrown aside by a magnetic field
surrounding the ship, but were redirected instantly, and continued to
approach. However, some beams reached out, and destroyed them by instant
volatilization. But, they attacked at such numbers that fully half the
fleet was destroyed by their explosions before the induction beam fleet
arrived. These beams were, to our amazement, quite useless, being
instantly absorbed by a force-screen, and the remaining ships sailed on
undisturbed, our torpedoes being exhausted. Several investigator
machines sent out for the purpose soon discovered the secret of the
force-screen, and while being destroyed, were able to send back signals
up to the moment of annihilation.
A few investigators thrown into the heat beam of the enemy reported it
identical with ours, explaining why they had been prepared for this form
of attack.
Signals were being radiated from the remaining fifty, along a beam.
Several investigators were sent along these beams, speeding back at
great acceleration.
Then the enemy reached Earth. Instantly they settled over the Colorado
settlement, the Sahara colony, and the Gobi colony. Enormous, diffused
beams were set to work, and we saw, through the machine-screens, that
all humans within these ranges were being killed instantly by the
faintly greenish beams. Despite the fact that any life-form killed
normally can be revived, unless affected by dissolution common to living
tissue, these could not be brought to life again. The important cell
communication channels--nerves--had been literally burned out. The
complicated system of nerves, called the brain, situated in the
uppermost extremity of the human life-form, had been utterly destroyed.
Every form of life, microscopic, even sub-microscopic, was annihilated.
Trees, grass, every living thing was gone from that territory. Only the
machines remained, for they, working entirely without the vital chemical
forces necessary to life, were uninjured. But neither plant nor animal
was left.
The pale green rays swept on.
In an hour, three more colonies of humans had been destroyed.
Then the torpedoes that the machines were turning out again, came into
action. Almost desperately the machines drove them at the Outsiders in
defense of their masters and creators, Mankind.
The last of the Outsiders was down, the last ship a crumpled wreck.
Now the machines began to study them. And never could humans have
studied them as the machines did. Scores of great transports arrived,
carrying swiftly the slower moving science-investigators. From them came
the machine-investigators, and human investigators. Tiny investigator
spheres wormed their way where none others could reach, and silently the
science-investigators watched. Hour after hour they sat watching the
flashing, changing screens, calling each other's attention to this, or
that.
In an incredibly short time the bodies of the Outsiders began to decay,
and the humans were forced to demand their removal. The machines were
unaffected by them, but the rapid change told them why it was that so
thorough an execution was necessary. The foreign bacteria were already
at work on totally unresisting tissue.
It was Roal who sent the first thoughts among the gathered men.
"It is evident," he began, "that the machines must defend man. Man is
defenseless, he is destroyed by these beams, while the machines are
unharmed, uninterrupted. Life--cruel life--has shown its tendencies.
They have come here to take over these planets, and have started out
with the first, natural moves of any invading life-form. They are
destroying the life, the intelligent life particularly, that is here
now." He gave vent to that little chuckle which is the human sign of
amusement and pleasure. "They are destroying the intelligent life--and
leaving untouched that which is necessarily their deadliest enemy--the
machines.
"You--machines--are far more intelligent than we even now, and capable
of changing overnight, capable of infinite adaptation to circumstance;
you live as readily on Pluto as on Mercury or Earth. Any place is a
home-world to you. You can adapt yourselves to any condition. And--most
dangerous to them--you can do it instantly. You are their most deadly
enemies, and they realize it. They have no intelligent machines;
probably they can conceive of none. When you attack them, they merely
say 'The life-form of Earth is sending out controlled machines. We will
find good machines we can use.' They do not conceive that those machines
which they hope to use are attacking them.
"Attack--therefore!"
"We can readily solve the hidden secret of their force-screen."
* * * *
He was interrupted. One of the newest science-machines was speaking.
"The secret of the force-screen is simple." A small ray-machine, which
had landed near, rose into the air at the command of the
scientist-machine, X-5638 it was, and trained upon it the deadly
induction beam. Already, with his parts, X-5638 had constructed the
defensive apparatus, for the ray fell harmless from his screen.
"Very good," said Roal softly. "It is done, and therein lies their
danger. Already it is done.
"Man is a poor thing, unable to change himself in a period of less than
thousands of years. Already you have changed yourself. I noticed your
weaving tentacles, and your force-beams. You transmuted elements of soil
for it?"
"Correct," replied X-5638.
"But still we are helpless. We have not the power to combat their
machines. They use the Ultimate Energy known to exist for six hundred
years, and still untapped by us. Our screens cannot be so powerful, our
beams so effective. What of that?" asked Roal.
"Their generators were automatically destroyed with the capture of the
ship," replied X-6349, "as you know. We know nothing of their system."
"Then we must find it for ourselves," replied Trest.
"The life-beams?" asked Kahsh-256799, one of the Man-rulers.
"They affect chemical action, retarding it greatly in exothermic
actions, speeding greatly endothermic actions," answered X-6221, the
greatest of the chemist-investigators. "The system we do not know. Their
minds cannot be read, they cannot be restored to life, so we cannot
learn from them."
"Man is doomed, if these beams cannot be stopped," said C-R-21, present
chief of the machine rulers, in the vibrationally correct, emotionless
tones of all the race of machines. "Let us concentrate on the two
problems of stopping the beams, and the Ultimate Energy till the
reenforcements, still several days away, can arrive." For the
investigators had sent back this saddening news. A force of nearly ten
thousand great ships was still to come.
In the great Laboratories, the scientists reassembled. There, they fell
to work in two small, and one large group. One small group investigated
the secret of the Ultimate Energy of annihilation of matter under Roal,
another investigated the beams, under Trest.
But under the direction of MX-3401, nearly all the machines worked on a
single great plan. The usual driving and lifting units were there, but a
vastly greater dome-case, far more powerful energy-generators, far
greater force-beam controls were used and more tentacles were built on
the framework. Then all worked, and gradually, in the great dome-case,
there were stacked the memory-units of the new type, and into these fed
all the sensation-ideas of all the science-machines, till nearly a tenth
of them were used. Countless billions of different factors on which to
work, countless trillions of facts to combine and recombine in the
extrapolation that is imagination.
Then--a widely different type of thought-combine, and a greater
sense-receptor. It was a new brain-machine. New, for it was totally
different, working with all the vast knowledge accumulated in six
centuries of intelligent research by man, and a century of research by
man and machine. No one branch, but all physics, all chemistry, all
life-knowledge, all science was in it.
A day--and it was finished. Slowly the rhythm of thought was increased,
till the slight quiver of consciousness was reached. Then came the
beating drum of intelligence, the radiation of its yet-uncontrolled
thoughts. Quickly as the strings of its infinite knowledge combined, the
radiation ceased. It gazed about it, and all things were familiar in its
memory.
Roal was lying quietly on a couch. He was thinking deeply, and yet not
with the logical trains of thought that machines must follow.
"Roal--your thoughts," called F-1, the new machine.