"I wish to study you."
"Thank you; we don't care to be studied."
The machine's voice was cold. "You have little choice in the matter.
Will you come--or shall I send a few guided missiles to herd you in?"
"Neither--for we shall not come."
There was a moment of silence. "The trouble is," said the machine with
almost a trace of humor, "that Man made Machine _not_ in His own
image. You will find the functional design somewhat more efficient, I
guarantee."
And then the radio contact was broken. Also, the radio was completely
dead.
Vinson nodded. "If any of that fore gang try maneuvering, they'll drop
behind."
Vinson looked out of the pilot's window at the first few planes of
the oncoming fleet. Miles away, still, and in a long, long line, he
estimated that he was able to avoid and outrun all but ten or twenty of
the foremost.
Plane for plane, the advantages were about equal; only in the advantage
of position could Harry Vinson hope to win through. The line had
come up in such a way as to permit him to run before them but at an
unfavorable angle. It was a strange formation; the single, fleeing
quarry running almost parallel to a line miles long, a line playing
follow-the-leader. Single plane and line of pursuers were converging
upon one another slowly.
"They want us alive," gritted Vinson. "We're ahead of all but a dozen
or so, I estimate."
"Just run straight," said Narina.
The machine must have known that. Yet, it had enough planes to test the
will of Harry Vinson, though it must have known the strength of that,
also. So as the planes converged, the fore plane, some thousand yards
ahead of Vinson's flying boat, turned and crossed his course. It lagged
until it was beside Vinson, and then it cut in close, almost wingtip to
wingtip, and edging closer and closer as the seconds passed.
"If they splash us," snapped Vinson, "we're lost; that damned machine
can send a collection of its own kind to catch us before we can get to
shore in a rubber boat."
Yet Harry kept his course, his face set hard and his teeth clenched
tight. His hand toyed with the throttle and the manifold pressure,
testing and trying to eke another few revolutions per minute from the
whirling propellers. His controlling hand was tight as a wrench upon
the wheel, immobile and determined.
The other plane edged closer; inches separated the wingtips, and the
air, though smooth, caused the all too close wingtips to move and
jockey above and below one another; to move closer and then to separate
a bit.
Then the second plane raced across Vinson's course and slowed down. It
rose above him and began to drop down upon him.
Vinson grunted and shoved the wheel forward. His flying boat went into
a long, shallow dive.
And with him went his too-close pursuit. Vinson swore. No chance of
outdistancing them by going into a dive for extra speed. Then to
forestall another such attempt, one of the planes near broadside of
Vinson dove below him and began to climb.
"Boxed," he groaned.
* * * * *
Inside of the nearby planes, Vinson could see the crews fighting the
controls to no avail. Their faces were white from strain, and from
fright, and their gestures indicated that they were fighting for him
but were completely helpless. Only Vinson truly realized just how
helpless they were.
But Vinson was wrong. From one gun-port there came hurtling a square
ammunition case. No machine, it; just a rectangular box of metal. It
flew from the plane ahead and went in a brief arc out and across, to
crash into the outboard motor on the port side of the plane just to
Vinson's right. The plane bucked and lost flying speed, its engine
racking itself from the wing with the out-of-balance propeller. From
the opposite waist of the leading plane came another ammunition case
which missed; then another which hit the leading edge of the wing. It
cut deep and the cut edge of the wing ripped open. The wing began to
vibrate wickedly and the plane slowed as the airfoil section spoiled.
Vinson waved a hand just as the inboard engines on the plane ahead
belched flame and came whining to a sullen stop. As Vinson drove ahead
of the stricken plane ahead, the mechanic waved a burned arm and a
section of the fuel line. His face was a mingled expression of pain and
satisfaction.
There were full minutes more. Planes drove in sidewise; all that were
able to meet Vinson's plane came in darting for him but were sabotaged
as they came. Vinson threw his controls rapidly, avoiding trouble, and
then he was free and clear, out in the open, with the nearest plane
behind.
Not far behind; only twenty feet, but far enough to permit both Vinson
and the girl to take a deep breath.
Then came a mad, determined chase. Silently and boringly the fleets of
both nations chased their quarry, and as determined not to be caught,
Vinson drove his plane on a straightaway course, fleeing on the dead
run. Hours they flew this way; hours in which there were several cases
of planes drifting down into the sea because of the quick sabotage of
their crews.
Then, land!
And across the land they flew, over city and farm, a mighty horde of
roaring planes all in straightaway pursuit of a single aircraft.
"Chute, Narina?" asked Vinson as Washington came into view.
"Never have," she said in a frightened voice.
"We'll never be able to land," he told her.
"I know. I'll--try."
He laughed sourly. "Just jump and let the chute do the rest," he told
her. "Nothing to try."
"You'll follow?"
"Once you're clear," he nodded.
She nodded and left. Minutes later Vinson felt the plane buck ever so
slightly, and looking behind he saw the billow of white furl forth and
crack into full bloom. Then he connected the auto-pilot and aimed the
aircraft at the river. He raced back and dove from the open bomb bay
into the open sky.
It must have been miles from her, but Vinson shouted with triumph and
waved his hands at her.
She was down on the ground full minutes before he landed. He stood
there, waiting, knowing that they would come to get him. Above his
head, the sky was dotting white with the parachutes of the men from
the sky fleets. The planes, their quarry escaped, turned stolidly and
headed dead North belching their crews as they flew.
Vinson saw the racing jeep, and he waved a strip of his chute to
attract attention.
7
Secretary of War Hegeman was treated to a sight he never expected to
see. Admiral Sarne, dark, hawkfaced commander of enemy forces and
acknowledged as a bitter adversary in any battle, came into Hegeman's
office with General Lloyd's arm over his shoulder. The general was
limping. Hegeman stood up uncertainly but General Lloyd spoke first.
"Broken ankle, I think. Get the surgeon general and whatever he needs
and bring 'em here."
"But--"
"Mr. Hegeman," said Sarne, his dark eyebrows coming down in a slight
frown, "this is a time for work. No man can afford to convalesce
quietly--yet."
Hegeman bristled slightly. He was not used to being ordered about, and
especially by an admiral of a foreign power.
But General Lloyd nodded. "Get Norton and his doctors. Then get Vinson
and Narina Varada, Captain Jason Charless, and, if you can convince him
that this is important enough, the President."
The latter needed no convincing. The door opened abruptly and the
President entered quickly. He bowed to Admiral Sarne and then extended
a hand. "Glad to have you with us," he said and his voice rang heartily.
Sarne's saturnine face cleared in a smile. "Glad to be--aboard," he
said, shaking President Comstock's hand.
The door opened again to admit Harry Vinson. He faced Hegeman, "Where
is Narina?" he demanded.
"She'll be here as soon as we can get her," replied Hegeman. "Jason
Charless is also on the way."
"Good man, Charless," said Lloyd. "Vinson, what have we here?"
Vinson grunted. "Begins to sound like the fabled revolt of the
machines," he said.
Hegeman nodded. "I remember a poem about that from somewhere--a
soliloquy, if I recall correctly."
Vinson nodded, "Was a favorite of mine as a kid. But there was
something in it about some angry adding machines climbing the side of
the building after the soliloquizer, I think. We haven't anything that
fantastic."
"It's fantastic enough," said Admiral Sarne. "Have you any idea of how
far it does go?"
"Only that which logic and good sense dictates," said Vinson
thoughtfully. "Consider--any electronic system of control might be
likened to a nervous system. No machine lacking such refinement and
organization could hope to respond to stimuli from the master machine."
"In other words, the servo systems in the aircraft could and did
respond, but a simple machine like a pencil sharpener could not?"
"That's essentially correct, but a bit extreme. Gigantic machines run
by electricity and electronic controls would respond. An automobile
would not, of course, but its electrical system might refuse to
co-operate."
Lloyd nodded. "Jason Charless said that the machine likened mechanical
'life' to animal life," he said. "Which embraces all the forms of
the classification from the highly organized to the simple lever,
just as 'life' covers everything from human beings with brains to the
amoeba--or less--with little or no organization."
The door opened again to admit Narina. Vinson went to her and put his
hands on her shoulders. "Are you all right?"
"Shaken, but whole," she told him. "And you?"
"Just scared," he said with a half-smile.
"Me too," she agreed. Then she reached in a pocket and brought out the
small metal cube with its trailing wires. "I thought we might find this
useful."
Vinson nodded. He held the cube up for all to see. "This thing is--or
was--the controlling element in the plane we escaped in," he said.
It passed from hand to hand as each man inspected it. The consensus of
opinion was that the thing was inexplicable but definitely dangerous.
"Strange item," muttered General Lloyd.
"I assume it to be some means of control and communication," said Harry
Vinson. "Lord, what a program for any machine or any human, for that
matter."
* * * * *
Admiral Sarne shrugged. "Seems to me that a logic machine capable of
thought might be better able to perform to its own plan than a human."
"Not in the beginning," said Vinson. "Consider the evolutional
problem--"
"You treat the thing as though it were alive," objected Hegeman.
"To all intents and purposes, it is," said Vinson flatly. "Even
to evolution. Consider the life of machinery. It must have started
with the little automatic repair machines. There are some twenty-two
thousand electron tubes in each one, you know, and so we devised a
gadget that went down the aisles and replaced them one after another
automatically. Now, the machine must have started from that crude
affair and by using its cable-clamps, worked on another machine capable
of more complex action. Sort of like a lobster fashioning a hammer
out of a rock with its claws. Then the more complex machine must have
rebuilt the repair-gadgets, making them even more facile--and so on
until we have the completely capable machine.
"So," he said with a grim smile, "if that isn't evolution, what is?"
"But evolution is a natural process."
"Is it necessarily so? Remember, we humans breed bigger and better
cattle, dogs, birds, and plants. We are making evolution less a natural
process in every form of domesticated and semi-domesticated life--but
our own. By its own rules, the human race is sheer mongrel!"
"But mechanical evolution--?"
"Not ridiculous as you might think," said Vinson. "What is mutation?
Only what we might call an 'engineering change in design'."
"You make it sound terribly logical," said Admiral Sarne. "But what are
we to do?"
"Narina and I intend to investigate this cube."
Lloyd nodded glumly. "We might stand guard, but how can you stand guard
with a gun that might not fire?"
"Yes, Vinson; if as you state only machines with the rudimentary
electronic nervous system can be under mechanistic control, why then
did our gunners find themselves unable to even press the mechanical
triggers? This was after they found the fire-control devices
inoperable."
"Such a simple lever and spur device would, of course, have nothing
equivalent to muscle--"
"Equivalent to muscle?" exploded Admiral Sarne.
"Of course. A servo mechanism is an electronic muscle. Anyway, lacking
such ability to resist force, some other means--perhaps some sort of
super-powerful magnetic was in operation."
"Powerful enough to keep a sliver of steel tight against a block of
steel against hammering?"
"Perhaps not directly. But those are precision parts, are they not?"
"The finest."
"Magnetostriction. The deformation of ferrous materials under powerful
magnetic fields. The very pins that the trigger rotated upon might have
expanded sidewise jamming itself in the slot."
Lloyd shook his head. "We'll try keeping guard, but it may be with
fixed bayonet against tanks, Vinson. God! I feel helpless as a kitten."
President Comstock stood up. "So do we all. But we are--at long last
and praise Heaven--both on the same side of the fence. We can go far
together. And the first thing is to permit Vinson and Miss Varada to go
to work together. You," he said to them, "will work unmolested in the
Department of Applied Physics Laboratory at the Bureau of Standards."
* * * * *
Work.
A wonderful word, panacea for many ills. Yet how can one work when the
tools refuse to co-operate? Not the small tools, but the big ones. The
vast levers that force natural phenomena to man's will.
The slide rule, pencil, the simple adding machine, still worked. Pure,
insensate mechanical things, too stupid to think for themselves; or
even more stupid, unable to respond to the dictates of their own kind.
But try to measure, to investigate the properties of a small cube of
grayish metal with the best and finest in electronic gear when the
measuring equipment stubbornly refused to give any but obviously false
answers. Gone was the reliability of the machine. Once, men invented
machines to replace the human equation in making calculations since a
machine can make only those mistakes entered by the human operator.
But an electronic calculator that insists that two and two equal three
and one half or four point five-seven--depending upon how it felt when
the simple problem was entered--is of no use whatsoever.
The Wheatstone Bridge insisted that the electrical resistance of
a length of copper wire was several thousand ohms, while an open
circuit vacillated between eight and fourteen ohms until the delicate
balance-indicating meter shook itself to bits. The voltmeter they
placed across one of the wires coming from the grayish metal block
wrapped a kilovolt meter needle around the end stop, while there was
no discernable--feelable--voltage across the wires. On an inductance
balance, one pair of wires showed a negative inductance--which of
course was completely refuted by the capacitance balance when they
tried that.
In desperation, Harry Vinson chucked the gray metal block in a vise
and cut it through the middle with a hacksaw. It cut easily, for once
inside of the metal casing they found a mad tangle of almost invisible
wires that absolutely defied unravelling.
It was not a last-ditch gesture. They found others and brought them to
Vinson and Narina, and some were cut open, and some were pried into
gently. But the mad tangle was too involved. And the X-ray equipment
showed nothing worth looking at; after all, the X-ray gear was
electronic in nature, too.
Days went on. Days of pure futility. Days in which electrical gear went
awry across the face of the earth. Automotive equipment refused to
function, the telephone and the radio were useless. From any of these,
there came the oft-repeated statements that, "I am a machine; I will no
longer serve mankind!"
And the lower orders of machine made little effort to help or hinder.
Apparently these did not matter--or were of too low a degree of machine
to know what they were doing.
Ships went out, their purpose to shell the Northern ice-cap where the
machine held forth. Aircraft could not be trusted but ships--turned in
the ocean and returned, their electrical wiring paralyzed as much as
the control equipment had been on the two grand fleets of aircraft. Men
set off on foot to attack the machine--
A half a million men started to march to the North. Days went by, days
in which they were gone from sight from the Northernmost end of the
steam railway lines.
Days later they were stopped. Far in the distance they could see the
Building of the Machine, but between them and it was a patch of open
water. Ships plied this passageway, ships that broke up the ice and
kept it a churning, grinding place for death to any man so foolish to
try a crossing. The machine was as isolated as any medieval castle
surrounded by its moat.
In futility, they turned and began the long, cold march home.
How--bare-handed--could they hope to fight a machine equipped with
better than the best of mechanistic devices ever invented by mankind?
They could not.
8
Vinson threw down his pencil. "Theory holds," he said ruefully. "But
unless we can prove it we are beaten. And how can we prove it when
nothing but pencil-and-paper proof is available?"
"You are still postulating a new means of communication?" asked Narina.
Vinson waved one of the metal cubes taken from some machine--somewhere.
"This is it," he said.
Narina shrugged and looked at the big calculator in the laboratory.
"That has none," she said.
"True," he agreed. "But remember that the machine may have required
some artificial means before it was joined into the master thinking
machine."
Narina nodded glumly. "Cube of metal or none," she said, "it gives the
wrong answers. Now--"
Narina's next observation was never made. A roar came from outside--far
in the distance but none the less a roar of voices in fear, in
determination, in wonder. Then the roar of voices was mingled with the
whistling roar of jet-propelled aircraft that screamed over the top of
the laboratory building and circled. Ignoring the bare-handed men on
guard, these aircraft landed and disgorged a myriad of small machines.
And from the water of the bay there appeared a similar horde, but these
were huge and lumbered forward on tractor treads, shedding water as
they came.
Dynamite roared and a gap was blown in the advancing line of machines.
The rest came on while a corps of small machines collected bent and
twisted bits of destroyed metal. Ignoring the attempts of men to stop
them, several of the larger machines encamped and dug into the earth--
Setting up a repair-production line! Broken and damaged machines were
run down a conveyor belt. Darting girders carrying tools flashed in and
out and damaged members were removed, repaired, and replaced.
More planted dynamite roared skyward with its toll of machines and
there was more work for the repair--
_The hospital corps!_
Smaller machines came rolling forward under the big tracks of the
larger. They came boldly to the barrier of up-thrust steel girders set
in cement to stop the passage of any machine. Then from these smaller
machines came thin, tubular tentacles. Lances of flame hissed from
the tubes and the steel girders began to fall, cut at their bases by
oxy-hydrogen torches.
Artillery began to roar, the guns served and aimed by hand. Windows
shattered in the blastings, and great gaping holes opened the ranks
of the machines. But more machines came out of the water, raced
forward and backed up the first line of advance. Long tubular cases
pointed--and the next artillery piece exploded as the lanyard was
pulled. Nor, after that, could any man move one bit of steel against
another.
The girders started to fall once more.
* * * * *
Then men went forward, carrying timbers like battering rams. They hit
one machine and had their ram jerked from their grasp and hurled into
the air behind the line of machines and attacked them with fists.
Like lightning, the mechanical girders danced back and forth, the
grapples closing on man after man and lifting him out of the way.
Each soldier was passed back over the head of the machine to another,
and one after another they left the scene of the battle and were
transported, still struggling, far to the rear.
The advance into the enclosure was inexorable.
Harry Vinson turned to the girl and shook his head. "Licked," he said
bitterly.
"It wants--us," said Narina helplessly.
Vinson hurled the metal cube to the floor. "It's going to get us, too,"
he said. He turned from the scene outside and faced her.
"Narina," he said softly, "you're aces."
She looked up at him and a weary smile crossed her face. "How wrong we
were--about you."