by Eando Binder
The chance passed, as my enemy rolled away, Swung erect. But I had been a fool. One blow and Eve would have known non-existence. It would have been sheer mercy, to save her from a living death. If the chance came again, I would not hesitate. . .
I hardly know what went on in the following minutes. Once my enemy picked up a boulder that ten men could not have budged and hurled it at me like a bomb. I dodged but it scraped my side, tearing three rivets loose. Again, he locked his arms around me from the back and crunched them together so fiercely that metal screamed. But I heaved him over my back, breaking the hold.
We fought on, like two mad giants. Our colossal blows at one another would have felled the largest dinosaur of Earth’s savage past. Our mechanical apparatus within began to feel the repeated shock. Parts were being strained to the breaking point. It couldn’t go on forever. One of us would break down.
I had a dim hope that my enemy would first. Hillory had had to fight by proxy, from a distance. I had fought from a closer range. I had gotten more telling blows in. His inner mechanisms had received the most terrific jolting. It was his second battle. I had punched at the head as often as I could, jarring the brain within—even though it was Eve’s.
I cannot describe the hollow ache that came with the thought of winning by killing Eve. But I had to win. I had to save the future robot race from slavery. And the human race, beyond that, from the eventual catastrophe of such a stupid course.
I aimed another blow, straight for what would be the human jaw.
Suddenly it was over.
The other robot’s arms dropped. There was a stunned, dazed air about the whole body. It swayed a moment, then its knee swivels bent and it crashed to Earth. It lay sprawled, eyes closed.
For a long moment I stared. I heard no sound from the other body. It lay utterly rigid, quiet. And then I realized it was dead. The brain had died first. My final blow had killed Eve!
I stood looking down at the battered wreck. I looked beyond it. I could almost see a body like Kay’s lying there, a human body, the real Eve. Her eyes were closed. Perhaps there was a peaceful smile on the lips.
I turned slowly.
Slowly, my steps dragging, I strode for the cabin, to confront the man who had killed my Eve. The man who considered us nothing more than mechanical puppets, with which he could play as he desired.
Hillory darted out of the door. His face was a ghastly white. I clutched at him, caught his coat, but he tore loose. He ran, as though from some monster. And at that moment, I was a monster, I pounded after him. What things I screeched, I do not know.
He ran past the edge of the cliff, taking the shortest course to the road. Abruptly a great piece of the cliff-edge parted from its matrix. The stupendous vibrations of our battle had loosened the piece. It plunged below. Hillory was on it.
I dug my foot-plates into the soil and leaned backward, barely halting at the edge of the fissure. I looked down. I saw the white dot of Hillory’s body land. I knew he hadn’t survived the fall.
I am writing this now, in the cabin. When I am done, I will go with Eve. There may not be a heaven for robots. But neither is there a hell—unless Earth is it.
I HAD just finished writing my last account. It was about Dr. Hillory, who had driven Eve, my created mind-mate, to commit crime. He had brought about her death, in a battle, at my own hands.[*]
There her great eight-foot body lay, silent as a shut-down machine. Grief overcame me, an emotion as real and deep as any you humans have. I pictured her as a human form lying there—a young, lovely girl. But she was dead now.
It had begun to rain. Kneeling beside her, I removed my top skull-plate. The rain, pouring into my sensitive iridium-sponge brain, would short-circuit my life-current. I would join Eve in blessed non-existence.
Kay and Jack Hall, and Tom Link found me that way when they arrived a moment later. Police were with them. “Adam! Adam Link!” Jack yelled.
“Hillory is dead! We saw him fall down the cliff. Your troubles are over. Adam, what are you doing—”
But I heard no more. A hiss sounded from within me, as the water touched a live wire. Smoke curled up from my exposed metal brain.
Adam and Eve, the first of intelligent robot life, were leaving the world not meant for them . . .
AWARENESS came to me instantaneously, as it always does when I am “revived.” I looked around. I was inside Dr. Hillory’s laboratory, out of the rain. Jack and Tom stood before me, smiling in relief. Kay knelt beside Eve’s form, lying supine on the floor. The police had helped drag us in. They stood watching, somewhat at a loss over this resuscitation of robots.
I started. I heard a moan. A raspy, metallic sound. It came from Eve’s microphonic throat!
“You poor fool!” Jack exploded at me. “Your final blow stunned, not killed, her. Haven’t you heard of someone being knocked cold? She’s coming to. You blithering idiot, taking her for dead—”
It was true. I crawled beside Eve. Her eyelids clicked open. I could almost feel the terror that flicked through her. Her last impression had been my crashing steel fists at her with all my frightful machine power. She took in the situation at a glance, in that quick way we robots have.
“Adam—” one of her hands reached for mine. It was all she could say in her joy. I couldn’t say anything.
“As for you,” Jack continued, “we jerked off a battery-cable before the short-circuit burned out your brain, dragged you in, and after drying, reconnected you. Just about in time, you crazy, senseless tin boob—”
Kay stopped his vehement “bawling out,” which I deserved. I am supposed to be a cold, clear intelligence. Yet like a hysterical neurotic, I had very nearly clipped off our two robot lives. Hand in hand, Jack and Kay looked down at us, Eve and me, also with our hands together. They understood why I had been driven frantic.
Jack was now grinning. “With Hillory out of the way, you can start life all over, Adam and Eve Link—”
“Just a minute!”
The police captain stepped forward. “I have a warrant for the arrest of Adam Link, for the robbery of Midcity Bank and the murder of Joshua Kalb!”
This new blow was like lightning. Trouble had not ceased to dog our footsteps for so long that I had forgotten what happiness had been.
Jack whirled. “But Dr. Hillory caused that. You see, Hillory used remote radio control and had Adam and Eve Link in his power. He is the true robber and murderer—”
The police captain was terse. “Sorry, I’m following orders. Evidence shows that a robot did both crimes. Adam Link must come with me.”
“But it wasn’t Adam Link,” Tom spoke up suddenly. “It was Eve Link!”
“No, it was I!” I snapped quickly. I didn’t want Eve to go through all the turmoil of a court trial—and face possible sentence, if worst came to worst. I sent a searching, almost angry glance at Tom Link.
“Eve, I say,” Tom insisted.
“I’ll have to take them both along,” said the police officer. He and his men were smiling. The whole thing, I could see, struck them as queerly humorous. Particularly one robot trying to shield another, like humans might. Only Jack and Kay and Tom, my friends, understood.
But I noticed that behind their smiles, the police were tense, ready to grab for their pistols. One of us, myself or Eve, was a murderer. More than that, we were fearsome metal monsters, eight feet tall. I could see that inevitable thought coursing through their minds—Frankenstein!
No use to resist, of course. It would have been easy—Eve and I rushing through them and laughing at their bullets. Yes, but then what? Hounded, persecuted, through the woods and hills. State militia called as a last resort, surrounding us with grenades and heavy guns, with orders to destroy the two loose monsters. No, that was the last thing in the world I would do. I had patterned my life in the human way. We would face the agencies of law, though I hated the thought of again going through its legal claptrap.
“Come, Eve,” I said quietly. “We must dea
l with humans on their own footing.”
We were taken down the mountain road to the city in one of the two squad cars. The engine groaned with our combined half-ton of weight. Jack, Kay and Tom followed in their car.
BEFORE the indictment a few hours later, Tom managed to whisper to me.
“Don’t shield Eve, Adam. Let her go through the trial. She will then acquire human status, as you did in yours. I’m certain I can save her from the charges—but only with you as witness of Hillory’s evil control. You are a human, in court records. Therefore your testimony will be official!”
I nodded. Tom’s clear legal reasoning had foreseen all that. My thoughts leaped ahead. Eve exonerated, legally a human. Then both of us would apply for citizenship, as my creator, Dr. Link, had from the first day of my “birth” visioned. And even—my heart sang—a church wedding for Eve and me! Then we would be the legal equals of full-fledged humans, in the eyes of the world.
The words of the official reading the indictment crashed into my hopeful thoughts.
“Eve Link is hereby accused of the robbery of Midcity Bank, and of the murders of Joshua Kalb, John Deering, Tony Pucelli, and Hans Unger, all of this city!”
Tom started. “What?” he demanded. “Why is Eve Link being accused of three other murders?”
The official looked up with a hard cynicism.
“Investigation reports came in, just before we drew up the final indictment. The next night, after Kalb’s murder, those other three were murdered—Deering, Pucelli and Unger. In each case, clues pointed to a robot. Marks on their bodies could only have been done by a metal instrument. Even bits of metal filing were found!”
Jack groaned, at my side.
“I get it! You remember how the papers played up the robot angle immediately after Kalb’s death. Everybody read it the next morning. Some clever criminal organization in the city, seeing that, promptly carried out three of their gang murders the next night. Using metal clubs, and leaving metal filings, it points to Eve as the culprit, continuing her ‘brutal, berserk murder of innocent humans’—as the papers played up Kalb’s death!”
He groaned again. “How clever—how damnably clever!”
The official shrugged. “You’ll have to prove your claims in court. The trial will be held in a month.”
Tom Link turned a pale face to me. He didn’t have to say it.
Eve was doomed!
Tom might prove Hillory’s actual guilt in the case of Kalb. But three other lives had been taken wantonly, cold-bloodedly, by the Frankenstein monster named Eve Link!
Frankenstein! Frankenstein! Already I could hear the word shrieking through the city, in every newspaper and from every radio speaker. Eve had the noose around her neck.
Jack put a hand on my arm. I think I was trembling. When my thoughts are disorganized, my internal machinery is also.
“Well put detectives on the job,” Jack said. “We have a month’s time—” But he exchanged a hopeless glance with Tom.
Detectives. A month’s time. A clever criminal ring that had covered up its trail cunningly. A whole city aroused against the robots parading as humans, taking life in secret. It added up to zero—for Eve. My thoughts crashed to that conclusion in seconds.
I warned Tom and Jack to say no more, I turned to Eve.
“Go to your cell. They will lock you in. On no account must you try to leave.” I paused. “We must accept what comes. The case is hopeless. Do you understand, dear?”
Eve was shocked. I could detect that in the way her internal hum had missed a moment, exactly as a human heart may skip. She had been waiting for one word of hope from me. I gave her none. She was led away in a dead silence.
“I’ll visit her every day,” Kay said sympathetically. “Poor child, she’ll feel so frightened and alone.” She glanced at me almost contemptuously for my brutal dismissal.
CHAPTER II
My Disguise
“DRIVE to my mountain cabin-laboratory,” I directed, when we were outside.
It was not till we were there that I spoke again.
“Out with it,” Jack demanded shrewdly. “Something’s seething in that brain of yours.”
“I thought you were a man, Adam Link!” Kay said furiously. “A man who would fight for one he loves. You could at least have said one word of encouragement. Why did you tell poor Eve that the case was hopeless?”
I winced a little under her scorn. But I spoke firmly, “For the benefit of the officials. And the reporters waiting for the least little rumor or report to play up. And most important, for the benefit, eventually, of the criminal ring dumping their murders in Eve’s lap. They’ll sit back now, confident that we won’t try a thing. They won’t know that a detective is on the case. A detective by the name of—Adam Link!” They gasped.
“You!” Jack snapped.
“Yes, why not? Without meaning to boast, I think quicker than any human. I have super-keen ears and eyes. I have strength and quickness and powers no human detective has. I can do more in a month than ten men.”
Jack shook his head sadly. “You’ve forgotten one thing, Adam. You’ve naturally come to think of yourself as human. But the whole meaning of the word detective is spying in secret. How can you—with your metal body?”
I stepped to my workbench and brought back a bowl of sticky, rubbery plastic, “I was working on this before Hillory upset my plans. I was toying with the idea of—well, look—”
I smeared some of the plastic over my frontal-plate, with a spatula. It was opaque, hiding the metal. Its color was that of human flesh.
“My disguise,” I said. “Human disguise.”
I turned to the thought-helmet, the one with which Hillory had diabolically controlled Eve. Now there would be at least one benefit from the hell we had been through. The thought-helmets were a godsend in this hour of need.
Switching on the power, I sent a radio-beam searching for Eve’s mind. My electrical thoughts modulated the beam, in a process akin to telepathy.
“Eve!” I called. “Can you hear me?”
“Adam!” came back almost instantly over the conducting beam. “I’ve been so afraid—”
“Don’t be, darling,” I returned. “And forgive me for leaving you so coldly. It was necessary. I’m going to save you, Eve. I’m going to save you!”
But it was not till two precious weeks later that I began.
I had had to work day and night, perfecting the plastic, giving it the rubbery consistency of human flesh. And also making it adhere firmly to metal. I think a human chemist would not have solved the problem in a year. But I was driven by a demon. Every tick of my internal-electrical distributor counted off the hours with the noose tightening around Eve’s neck.
I USED my former, smaller body, before adopting the giant one in my battle against Eve’s giant one. It stood five feet ten—human height. Covered with plastic, my torso was rather thick, giving me the appearance of a burly man. The legs and arms were easy, though it was a trick to pat the plastic into folds at the joints. I cut my fiat feet-plates down, to the proportions of a human foot. Covered with clothes, the imperfections of my pseudo-human body weren’t glaring. The important thing was that my hard metal was covered with a softer medium.
Molding my face and hands took the most delicate labor. They would be exposed to constant sight. Jack and Kay were my faithful assistants. Tom was down in the city, delving into the case.
My hands came out as big hams, worthy of a prize-fighter. The fingers were rather stiff, because of the metal “bone” beneath. Jack carefully set human hair into the plastic, over the knuckles, in keeping with my general appearance as a big, brawny man. He molded my facial features with a master’s touch—outjutting chin, heavy straight lips, low forehead. He couldn’t resist giving me a slight pug nose and a cauliflower ear. Over my shiny skull he glued a wig of matty black hair. And a rather heavy mustache on my upper lip, to help conceal the fact that it didn’t move when I talked.
The eye
s were a problem. I made them myself, two little hemispheres of clear thin glass. My vision was somewhat distorted, and it was a blue world after Jack applied blue-stain for irises.
Kay did her part, rougeing the cheeks and lips cleverly, to take away the dead-flesh texture. Little touches of cosmetics around the eyes and nose blended the features properly.
“There!” Jack grunted finally, with his irrepressible sense of humor. “Didn’t know I was a master sculptor down underneath!”
They surveyed me critically, from top to toe. I wore a dark tweed suit and a cap pulled low. Suddenly, though they tried to resist, they burst out laughing. I could not blame them when I looked in a full-length mirror.
In the glare of electric light, I was perhaps the strangest looking being imaginable. A big, hulking-shouldered man with a dead “pan” and clumsy arms and legs. Jack stopped laughing and substituted a shaded lamplight for the overhead glare. And there, in the half-gloom, with imperfections hidden, I seemed suddenly to come to life.
“You’ll do,” Jack nodded soberly. “You can work only at night, though. And keep out of bright lights. Outside of a certain stiffness in your carriage—which might come from being muscle-bound like any has-been fighter—you’re Pete Larch, the pug.”
They gave me lessons in walking and swinging my arms naturally. I learned to slouch a little, and take short strides instead of my long, ponderous ones. A rough job, all in all, but we only had two weeks. I would pass for a human to all but the most searching eyes in bright light.
“One thing, though,” Jack said worriedly. “That damned jingling noise you make inside.” He had the answer to that quickly. He drew out a large watch that made a loud ticking. “Put it in your vest pocket. Kay never liked it anyway. At strategic moments, take it out so they think it’s just that turnip clattering away, and not your gear-and-cog innards. Well, Adam old boy—go out and get your man!”
He had tried to lighten the moment I left with a flippant tone. But beneath it we were solemn. I had a big job ahead of me, with no inkling of how it would come out.