by Eando Binder
The sheriff tried to remonstrate, but Tom hustled him out, and the other men with him. “If you want to continue prosecution of Adam Link, the intelligent robot,” was Tom’s parting shot, “come back with a warrant of arrest!”
TOM turned to me when we were alone. “Whew!” He wiped his forehead. “That was close!” Then he grinned a little, thinking perhaps of the utterly confounded look on the sheriff’s face at the last. I grinned, too, within myself. It is a feature of intelligence—whether in a human body or metal—to see humor in that which is ridiculous.
I was still, however, a little puzzled. “Tell me, Tom Link,” I queried, “why you have so completely taken my side? All others, except your uncle, hated and feared me from first sight.”
Instead of answering, Tom rummaged in his uncle’s private desk. At last he withdrew a document and let me read it. I did not quite grasp the complicated legal language, but I noticed the word “citizen” several times.
Tom explained. “My uncle, if he hadn’t died so unfortunately, was fully determined to make you a citizen, Adam Link, as you know. He had begun to take up the matters of legal records to prove your “birth”, education and rightful status. He corresponded with me on these details at some length. In another month, I was to have come here to complete the negotiations.”
I remembered Dr. Link’s repeated remarks that I was not just a robot, a metal man. I was life! I was a thinking being, as manlike as any clothed in flesh and blood. He had trained me, brought me up, with all the loving kindness, patience and true feeling of a mother with her own child.
And now, with the thought of my creator, came a sadness, an ache within me. I felt as I had that day I discovered him dead, when the sunlight had seemed suddenly faded to me. You who read may smile cynically, but my “emotions”, I believe, are real and deep. Life is essentially in the mind. I have a mind.
“He was a good man,” I said. “And you, Tom, you are my friend!”
He smiled in his warm way, and put his hand on my shiny, hard shoulder. “I am your cousin!” he responded simply. “Blood is thicker than water, you know!”
No play of words was intended, I knew that. I can only say that I have never heard a nobler expression. In five simple words, he showed me that he accepted me as a fellow man. Men like Tom are rare. They are the kind who, if given power, rule wisely and well. But invariably they are the very ones who have little authority. I have wondered at times—but I must not digress from this present account.
THE rest of that day, while Tom Link went through his uncle’s effects, he talked to me at times. I told him the full story of his uncle’s accidental death and the following events:
“We have a battle ahead of us,” he summed it up. “The battle to save you from a charge of manslaughter. After that, we will take up the matter of your—citizenship.”
He glanced at me just a little queerly. His eyes traveled from my mirrored eyes and expressionless metal face down to my stiff, alloy legs. Perhaps for the first time, it occurred to him how strange this all was. He, a young lawyer, out to defend me, a conglomerate of wires and cogs, as though I were a human being, conceived by woman. For a moment, he may even have had doubts, now that the excitement was over and he had a chance to think about me.
Might I not be a monster after all? Might Dr. Link not have been wrong in saying that I was the opposite of my fearsomely fabricated exterior? Who could know what weird thoughts coursed through my unhuman, unbiological brain? Might I not just be waiting for the chance to kill Tom, too, in some monstrous mood?
I could see or feel those thoughts crowding his mind. I don’t think it’s a telepathic phenomenon. It is just that my electron-activated brain works instantaneously. The chains of memory-association within me operate with lightning rapidity. The slightest twitch of his lip and inflection in his voice revealed to me the probable thought causing them.
I felt a little disturbed. Was my only friend to gradually turn against me? Was my cause hopeless? Was it a foregone conclusion that such an utterly alien being as myself could never be accepted in the world of man? I was like a Martian, suddenly descending upon Earth, with as little possibility of achieving friendly intercourse. You think the comparison irrelevant? I will guarantee that the first Martians, or other worldly creatures, to land on Earth—if this event ever occurs—will be destroyed blindly. You humans do not know how strong and deep within you lies the jungle instincts of your animal past. That is, in the majority of you. And it is not necessarily those in high places who are more “civilized.” But I digress again.
While Tom was busy, I repaired myself. I am a machine, and know more about my workings than any physiologist knows of his own body. I straightened the knee-joint swivel mechanism, twisted by a bullet. Two of my fingers had broken “muscle” cables which I welded together. I took off my frontal chest plate and hammered the dents out. My removable skull-piece made simple the release of the pressure on my sponge-brain. My “headache” left.
Finally I oiled myself completely, and substituted a fresh battery in my driving unit. In a few hours I had gone through what would correspond in a human to surgical patchings, operations and convalescence that would have taken weeks. It is very convenient, having a metal body.
Then I went out. I wandered in the woods and came back with little Terry’s poor half-decayed body. He had been shot by the posse, accidentally, when they had hunted me. I buried him in the backyard, thinking of his joyous barks and the playful times we had had together.
“Adam! Adam Link!”
I started and turned. It was Tom, behind me, watching. His face was queerly glowing.
“Forgive me,” he said softly. “I was doubting you, Adam Link, all afternoon. Doubting that you could be as nearly human as my uncle wrote you were.
But I will never fail you again!” He was looking at the fresh grave of Terry.
CHAPTER II
Fighting Fear
AS Tom had predicted, Sheriff Barclay promptly appeared the next morning, with a warrant for my arrest! He was determined to have me destroyed. Since he couldn’t do so directly, without legally entangling himself in a suit, he had taken the other course.
“It will be a damned farce—holding a trial for a robot,” he admitted shamefacedly. “I feel like a fool. But it must be destroyed. You’re rather clever young man, but you don’t think a jury of honest, level-headed men is going to exonerate your—uh—client?”
Tom said nothing, just set his jaw grimly.
Sheriff Barclay looked at me. “You’re—uh—I mean it’s under arrest. It must come with us, to jail.” He was speaking to Tom, although he watched me narrowly, expecting me, I suppose, to go berserk.
“I’m going along,” nodded Tom. “Come, Adam.”
They had brought a truck for me—I am a 300-pound mass of metal—and drove me toward the nearby town. I had never been in one before, having lived in seclusion with Dr. Link at his country place. My first glimpse of the small city with its 50,000 inhabitants did not startle me. It is about what I had expected from my reading, and the pictures I had seen—noisy, congested, ugly, badly arranged.
I have a mechanical mind. My scientific outlook demands efficiency and order. Before we had reached the courthouse, I had picked out a hundred basic faults in this center of human activity. And the corresponding ways to improve them. Most of all, your traffic is a slipshod maze. You must excuse my bluntness. I speak and think without circumlocution.
A curious crowd watched as I was paraded up the courthouse steps. The news had gone around. They watched silently, awestruck. And in every face, I saw lurking fear, instinctive hatred. I had the feeling then, as never before, that I was an outcast. And doomed, in one way or another.
The scene in the courtroom was, as the sheriff had predicted, a sort of solemn farce. The presiding judge coughed continuously. Only Tom Link was at his ease. He insisted on the full, legal method. There had been an inquest of course, before Dr. Link’s burial, in which it was esta
blished that a heavy instrument had caused death. Nothing could gainsay that my hard metal arm might have been the “instrument of death.”
I was indicted on a manslaughter charge for the death of Dr. Charles Link, and entered in the record as “Adam Link.”
When that had been done, Tom heaved a sigh and winked toward me. I knew what the wink meant. Again a trap had been laid, and sprung. Once my name was down in the court record, I was accorded all the rights and privileges of the machinery of justice. As I know now, if Sheriff Barclay had gone to the governor of the state, instead, he could have obtained a state order to demolish me as an unlawful weapon! For I was a mechanical contrivance that (circumstantially) had taken a life!
Tom could not have squirmed out of that charge. But Sheriff Barclay had missed that loophole. With my name down, I was a defendant—and had human status!
Two newspaper reporters were present. One of them was staring at me closely, wonderingly. He came as near as he could, unafraid. Unafraid! The only one in the room, besides Tom, who did not fear me instinctively. He, too, could be my friend.
I saw the question in his eager young face. “Yes, I am intelligent,” I said, achieving a hissing whisper, so no one else would hear.
He started, then grinned pleasantly. “Okay!” he said and I know he believed. He began scribbling furiously in a notebook.
THE formal indictment over, the bailiff led me to my cell and locked me in. Tom smiled reassurance, but when he left I felt suddenly alone, hemmed in by enemies. You humans can never have quite that feeling. Unless, perhaps, you are a spy caught by an enemy nation. But even then you know you are dying for a cause, a reason. But I was being doomed—exterminated is the word—for little else than not being understood.
I was somewhat bewildered, and my thoughts were certainly of the type called brooding. Was Tom doing the right thing? Had he realized how tightly the coils of law would twine about me? As he had doubted me once, so now I doubted him, but with less reason. He was not the quite unknown quantity to me that I had been to him.
Tom appeared again an hour later, waving a paper. The court officials were with him, arguing loudly. He turned.
“Habeas Corpus!” he kept saying, calmly. “You’ve indicted Adam Link, whether he has the body of a robot or an elephant. This writ of Habeas Corpus frees the person of Adam Link, till the trial is called. I know the law. Release him!”
The bailiff argued hotly. I digested what I had heard, slowly and carefully. That is, slowly for me. It wasn’t more than a second later that I grasped the bars of my cell-door and with one concerted tug, jerked it open. There was a terrific grind of metal. The broken lock clattered to the stone floor. I strode out.
“I do not like being in a cage,” I said. “Can we go, Tom?”
I am afraid my impulsive act was a mistake. I saw that by Tom’s face. I had displayed my great strength, the strength of a powerful machine. It could only add fuel to their fear of me. The officials all turned pale and stumbled back, perhaps visioning how easy it would be for me to crush their skulls with single blows of my steel hands.
And that was precisely the last thing they must think of me. They must come to appreciate my mind, and my ability to serve humanity. For that purpose, Dr. Link had created me. And for that purpose I had dedicated myself, independently, months before. Once accepted as a fellow mind—a monster only in appearance—I could show my true worth. I, Adam Link, was the first of intelligent robots who could serve civilization in the combined capacity of mind and machine.
Yes, it was a foolish mistake. The writ of Habeas Corpus would have freed me anyway, if I had given Tom a little time. As I realize now, I was bewildered, and impatient. I cannot understand the strange tortuous ways you humans have of doing things. I have much to learn of civilization. Much.
Tom did not reprimand me, however, grasping my hand, he led me out of the jail. The officials stared dumfoundedly. Tom had also paid bail, and procured a paper placing me in his custody.
THEREAFTER, in the time before the trial, I went with Tom, around the city. He made frequent visits to the bank that was settling the estate of Dr. Link. He took me to the public library when he sought reference in weighty books of his profession. Often he would just parade me down a street. We watched the reaction of the crowds narrowly. As Tom had put it—could we get public opinion to swing our way, in the coming battle for my status in human society?
Fear! It rose in overwhelming tides about me. Blind fear that sent people scurrying away without dignity. Sometimes cars, in the traffic, bumped one another as their drivers caught their first glimpse of my shiny, metal form, so manlike and yet so alien. I felt depressed. Must I always inspire fear?
Children, however, proved more quickly adaptable. They had more of curiosity. In fact, a group of street gamins took to following me, tossing pebbles to hear them clink against my metal body. And a chant arose among them: “You’re nothing but a tin can I You’re nothing but a tin can!”
I wasn’t annoyed, nor was I particularly amused. Some of the adults we passed tittered. People cannot laugh and fear at the same time. The gamins with their simple little song had proved a blessing in disguise. Even Tom—though he tried to hide it—had a lurking grin twitching at his lips. I began to have hope that the fear of me would die down, eventually.
But it was a forlorn hope. My first venture into the public library was disquieting—both to myself and others. People edged away from me hurriedly. The library officials tried to prevent my going around, but Tom calmly and stubbornly proved to them that they couldn’t eject me on any count short of violation of civil liberties. The librarians gave in, but summoned police for guard. Undoubtedly everyone had heard of me as the murderer of a man. Everyone was certain that at any moment I would wantonly kill another. I felt that, and it saddened me.
But again there was an amusing quality in it. I eased my weight into a chair in the reading room and began reading scientific books Tom had procured for me at the call-desk. I scanned a page at a time. My eyes work on the television principle, and my memory is photographic.
An elderly man opposite the reading table had not looked up. Concentrated in his reading, he had ignored the noise I could not avoid making as my metal form contacted the chair. But in the following quiet, the steady hum of my internal mechanism must have penetrated his deep study. He looked up suddenly, flashed a glance of annoyance at me, and looked down again. Fully ten seconds passed before he looked up again, realizing what he had seen. This time he was startled. He closed his eyes, snapped them open again. After another long look at me, he quietly arose, as though recalling another engagement, and left. His face was pale.
THE newspapers were particularly unkind to me. Daily editorials were written, denouncing the laxity of the law. They were allowing, it was said, a dangerous engine of destruction to walk about. I was the Frankenstein product of a mad genius, a twisted travesty of the human form. The Machine had finally arisen, as had been foretold in imaginative literature, threatening Mankind. I was the forerunner, the spy perhaps, of a secret horde of metal demons, waiting to descend crushingly upon humanity, etc.
I have since come to realize that the editorial writers were more mercenary than stupid. They were capitalizing on a sensational item. It sold papers.
That it was inflaming their readers’ minds was of secondary importance. I meant nothing to them as a victim. I wasn’t even a person. I was just a clever machine. They crucified me mercilessly.
One editorial writer, however, denounced the denouncers. He took my part, insisting there was not a shred of proof as yet that Dr. Link’s amazing robot was a menace of any kind. I knew he must be the young reporter I had seen at the court. I had an unexpected friend, two now.
Two—out of the 50,000 in that city. Or out of the millions elsewhere who had read of me perhaps, and promptly were my enemies.
CHAPTER III
I Risk My—Life
THERE was one other thing that happened during those t
wo weeks. The fire. Tom and I were walking down the street when we heard the shriek of sirens. Then we saw it ahead—smoke pouring from the windows of a ten-story tenement. In the excitement of that, even I became of secondary importance. People crowded at my very side, staring at the flaming building, hardly aware of me.
It was fascinating. Ladders were hastily thrown up, and firemen climbed them. There were dozens of people endangered, in the fire-gutted building. Why do you humans allow such fire-traps to exist at all; I cannot understand it. When it was thought that all had been rescued, two screaming faces appeared at the seventh story. Smoke gushed from behind them.
A hideous wail went up from the crowd. They were doomed, those two! The ladders were threatened by flame and had to be withdrawn. No fireman dared plunge into the raging inferno of the interior. Jumping nets were in readiness, but the two screaming voices choked off and the two faces vanished from the window. Smoke had suffocated them into insensibility. In a matter of seconds, their fate would be sealed . . .
My reactions are instantaneous, being those of a machine. I moved away from Tom, toward the building. He was unaware, staring up with a look of hypnotic horror, as were all the crowd. They were in my way. I had to get through quickly.
I raised my voice in a hoarse bellow that was easily heard over the roaring of the flames. The crowd, suddenly turning its attention to me, and as quickly panic-stricken in the fear that I was going berserk, melted away. I dashed into the curtain of smoke that wreathed the burning building.
Hissing flames were all about me, then. I dashed through them, my metal body knowing no hurt or pain, and having no lungs to be seared. But it was a task even for my sharp, mechanical vision to see the stairs through the rolling clouds of black smoke. Fortunately, the stairs were of fireproof metal. I raced up them with all the speed and power I could command from my mechanical body. I reached the seventh floor just in time. The stairs behind me collapsed, melted through. I could never go back that way.