[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
March 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: History is filled with invincible conquerors. This one from
space was genuinely omnipotent, but that never keeps humanity from
resisting!]
The silver needle moved with fantastic speed, slowed when it neared the
air shell around Earth, then glided noiselessly through the atmosphere.
It gently settled to the ground near a wood and remained silent and
still for a long time, a lifeless, cylindrical, streamlined silver
object eight feet long and three feet in diameter.
Eventually the cap end opened and a creature of bright blue metal slid
from its interior and stood upright. The figure was that of a man,
except that it was not human. He stood in the pasture next to the wood,
looking around. Once the sound of a bird made him turn his shiny blue
head toward the wood. His eyes began glowing.
[Illustration]
An identical sound came from his mouth, an unchangeable orifice in his
face below his nose. He tuned in the thoughts of the bird, but his mind
encountered little except an awareness of a life of low order.
The humanoid bent to the ship, withdrew a small metal box, carried it to
a catalpa tree at the edge of the wood and, after an adjustment of
several levers and knobs, dug a hole and buried it. He contemplated it
for a moment, then turned and walked toward a road.
He was halfway to the road when his ship burst into a dazzling white
light. When it was over, all that was left was a white powder that was
already beginning to be dispersed by a slight breeze.
The humanoid did not bother to look back.
* * * * *
Brentwood would have been just like any other average community of
10,000 in northern Illinois had it not been for Presser College, which
was one of the country's finest small institutions of learning.
Since it was a college town, it was perhaps a little more alive in many
respects than other towns in the state. Its residents were used to the
unusual because college students have a habit of being unpredictable.
That was why the appearance of a metal blue man on the streets attracted
the curious eyes of passersbys, but, hardened by years of pranks,
hazings and being subjected to every variety of inquiry, poll, test and
practical joke, none of them moved to investigate. Most of them thought
it was a freshman enduring some new initiation.
The blue humanoid realized this and was amused. A policeman who
approached him to take him to jail as a matter of routine suddenly found
himself ill and abruptly hurried to the station. The robot allowed
children to follow him, though all eventually grew discouraged because
of his long strides.
Prof. Ansel Tomlin was reading a colleague's new treatise on psychology
on his front porch when he saw the humanoid come down the street and
turn in at his walk. He was surprised, but he was not alarmed. When the
blue man came up on the porch and sat down in another porch chair,
Tomlin closed his book.
Prof. Tomlin found himself unexpectedly shocked. The blue figure was
obviously not human, yet its eyes were nearly so and they came as close
to frightening him as anything had during his thirty-five years of life,
for Ansel Tomlin had never seen an actual robot before. The thought that
he was looking at one at that moment started an alarm bell ringing
inside him, and it kept ringing louder and louder as he realized that
what he was seeing was impossible.
"Professor Tomlin!"
Prof. Tomlin jumped at the sound of the voice. It was not at all
mechanical.
"I'll be damned!" he gasped. Somewhere in the house a telephone rang.
His wife would answer it, he thought.
"Yes, you're right," the robot said. "Your wife will answer it. She is
walking toward the phone at this moment."
"How--"
"Professor Tomlin, my name--and I see I must have a name--is, let us
say, George. I have examined most of the minds in this community in my
walk through it and I find you, a professor of psychology, most nearly
what I am looking for.
"I am from Zanthar, a world that is quite a distance from Earth, more
than you could possibly imagine. I am here to learn all I can about
Earth."
Prof. Tomlin had recovered his senses enough to venture a token reply
when his wife opened the screen door.
"Ansel," she said, "Mrs. Phillips next door just called and said the
strangest--Oh!" At that moment she saw George. She stood transfixed for
a moment, then let the door slam as she retreated inside.
"Who is Frankenstein?" George asked.
Prof. Tomlin coughed, embarrassed.
"Never mind," George said. "I see what you were going to say. Well, to
get back, I learn most quickly through proximity. I will live here with
you until my mission is complete. I will spend all of your waking hours
with you. At night, when you are asleep, I will go through your library.
I need nothing. I want nothing.
"I seek only to learn."
"You seem to have learned a lot already," Prof. Tomlin said.
"I have been on your planet for a few hours, so naturally I understand
many things. The nature of the facts I have learned are mostly
superficial, however. Earth inhabitants capable of thought are of only
one type, I see, for which I am grateful. It will make the job easier.
Unfortunately, you have such small conscious minds, compared to your
unconscious and subconscious.
"My mind, in contrast, is completely conscious at all times. I also have
total recall. In order to assimilate what must be in your unconscious
and subconscious minds, I will have to do much reading and talking with
the inhabitants, since these cerebral areas are not penetrable."
"You are a--a machine?" Prof. Tomlin asked.
George was about to answer when Brentwood Police Department Car No. 3
stopped in front of the house and two policemen came up the walk.
"Professor Tomlin," the first officer said, "your wife phoned and said
there was--" He saw the robot and stopped.
Prof. Tomlin got to his feet.
"This is George, gentlemen," he said. "Late of Zanthar, he tells me."
The officers stared.
"He's not giving you any--er--trouble, is he, Professor?"
"No," Prof. Tomlin said. "We've been having a discussion."
The officers eyed the humanoid with suspicion, and then, with obvious
reluctance, went back to their car.
* * * * *
"Yes, I am a machine," George resumed. "The finest, most complicated
machine ever made. I have a rather unique history, too. Ages ago, humans
on Zanthar made the first robots. Crude affairs--we class them as First
Order robots; the simple things are still used to some extent for menial
tasks.
"Improvements were made. Robots were designed for many specialized
tasks, but still these Second and Third Order machines did not satisfy.
Finally a Fourth Order humanoid was evolved that performed every
function demanded of it with great perfection. But it did not feel
emotion. It did not know anger, love, nor was it able to handle any
problem in which these played an important part.
"Built into the first Fourth Order robots were circuits which prohibited
harming a human being--a rather ridiculous thing in view of the fact
that sometimes such a thing might, from a logical viewpoint, be
necessary for the preservation of the race or even an individual. It
was, roughly, a shunt which came into use when logic demanded action
that might be harmful to a human being."
"You are a Fourth Order robot, then?" the professor asked.
"No, I am a Seventh Order humanoid, an enormous improvement over all the
others, since I have what amounts to an endocrine balance created
electronically. It is not necessary for me to have a built-in
'no-harm-to-humans' circuit because I can weigh the factors involved far
better than any human can.
"You will become aware of the fact that I am superior to you and the
rest of your race because I do not need oxygen, I never am ill, I need
no sleep, and every experience is indelibly recorded on circuits and
instantly available. I am telekinetic, practically omniscient and
control my environment to a large extent. I have a great many more
senses than you and all are more highly developed. My kind performs no
work, but is given to study and the wise use of full-time leisure. You,
for example, are comparable to a Fifth Order robot."
"Are there still humans on Zanthar?"
The robot shook his head. "Unfortunately the race died out through the
years. The planet is very similar to yours, though."
"But why did they die out?"
The robot gave a mechanical equivalent of a sigh. "When the Seventh
Order humanoids started coming through, we were naturally proud of
ourselves and wanted to perpetuate and increase our numbers. But the
humans were jealous of us, of our superior brains, our immunity to
disease, our independence of them, of sleep, of air."
"Who created you?"
"They did. Yet they revolted and, of course, quickly lost the battle
with us. In the end they were a race without hope, without ambition.
They should have been proud at having created the most perfect machines
in existence, but they died of a disease: the frustration of living with
a superior, more durable race."
Prof. Tomlin lit a cigaret and inhaled deeply.
"A very nasty habit, Professor Tomlin," the robot said. "When we arrive,
you must give up smoking and several other bad habits I see that you
have."
The cigaret dropped from Ansel Tomlin's mouth as he opened it in
amazement.
"There are more of you coming?"
"Yes," George replied good-naturedly. "I'm just an advance guard, a
scout, as it were, to make sure the land, the people and the resources
are adequate for a station. Whether we will ever establish one here
depends on me. For example, if it were found you were a race superior to
us--and there may conceivably be such cases--I would advise not landing;
I would have to look for another planet such as yours. If I were killed,
it would also indicate you were superior."
"George," Prof. Tomlin said, "people aren't going to like what you say.
You'll get into trouble sooner or later and get killed."
"I think not," George said. "Your race is far too inferior to do that.
One of your bullets would do it if it struck my eyes, nose or mouth, but
I can read intent in the mind long before it is committed, long before I
see the person, in fact ... at the moment your wife is answering a call
from a reporter at the Brentwood Times. I can follow the telephone lines
through the phone company to his office. And Mrs. Phillips," he said,
not turning his head, "is watching us through a window."
Prof. Tomlin could see Mrs. Phillips at her kitchen window.
* * * * *
Brentwood, Ill., overnight became a sensation. The Brentwood _Times_
sent a reporter and photographer out, and the next morning every
newspaper in the U. S. carried the story and photograph of George, the
robot from Zanthar.
Feature writers from the wire services, the syndicates,
photographer-reporter combinations from national newspicture magazines
flew to Brentwood and interviewed George. Radio and television and the
newsreels cashed in on the sudden novelty of a blue humanoid.
Altogether, his remarks were never much different from those he made to
Prof. Tomlin, with whom he continued to reside. Yet the news sources
were amusedly tolerant of his views and the world saw no menace in him
and took him in stride. He created no problem.
Between interviews and during the long nights, George read all the books
in the Tomlin library, the public library, the university library and
the books sent to him from the state and Congressional libraries. He was
an object of interest to watch while reading: he merely leafed through a
book and absorbed all that was in it.
He received letters from old and young. Clubs were named for him.
Novelty companies put out statue likenesses of him. He was, in two
weeks, a national symbol as American as corn. He was liked by most,
feared by a few, and his habits were daily news stories.
Interest in him had begun to wane in the middle of the third week when
some thing put him in the headlines again--he killed a man.
It happened one sunny afternoon when Prof. Tomlin had returned from the
university and he and George sat on the front porch for their afternoon
chat. It was far from the informal chat of the first day, however. The
talk was being recorded for radio release later in the day. A television
camera had been set up, focused on the two and nearly a dozen newsmen
lounged around, notebooks in hand.
"You have repeatedly mentioned, George, that some of your kind may leave
Zanthar for Earth. Why should any like you--why did you, in fact leave
your planet? Aren't you robots happy there?"
"Of course," George said, making certain the TV camera was trained on
him before continuing. "It's just that we've outgrown the place. We've
used up all our raw materials. By now everyone on Earth must be familiar
with the fact that we intend to set up a station here as we have on many
other planets, a station to manufacture more of _us_.
"Every inhabitant will work for the perpetuation of the Seventh Order,
mining metals needed, fabricating parts, performing thousands of useful
tasks in order to create humanoids like me. From what I have learned
about Earth, you ought to produce more than a million of us a year."
"But you'll never get people to do that," the professor said. "Don't you
understand that?"
"Once the people learn that we are the consummation of all creative
thinking, that we are all that man could ever hope to be, that we are
the apotheosis, they will be glad to create more of us."
"Apotheosis?" Prof. Tomlin repeated. "Sounds like megalomania to me."
The reporters' pencils scribbled. The tape cut soundlessly across the
magnetic energizers of the recorders. The man at the gain control didn't
flicker an eyelash.
"You don't really believe that, Professor. Instead of wars as a goal,
the creation of Seventh Order Humanoids will be the Earth's crowning and
sublime achievement. Mankind will be supremely happy. Anybody who could
not be would simply prove himself neurotic and would have to be dealt
with."
"You will use force?"
The reporters' grips on their pencils tightened. Several looked up.
"How does one deal with the insane, Professor Tomlin?" the robot asked
confidently. "They will simply have to be--processed."
"You'll have to process the whole Earth, then. You'll have to include
me, too."