by Eando Binder
“However, this is still a golden opportunity. We’ll dig and mine silver at an unprecedented rate. Humans will sit up and take notice. They will begin to see the true value of robots. Slowly but surely we will win our place in the sun. Work, my brothers! The future of the robot race lies in your hands!”
I STARED proudly now at the thirty stiff, unmoving metal men. The hum of their internal mechanism filled the air and spoke of power, strength, skill. We would show the human race! We would make a name for ourselves . . .
“Through with your little pep-talk?” I turned to the speaker. I didn’t like this Lem Daggert’s cynical, almost sneering tones. But the government had appointed him superintendent of the project, and there was nothing I could do about it. Nor did I like his cold blue eyes, nor the fleshy lips that curled constantly around an unlit cigar. I analyze humans quickly. Daggert was overbearing, rude, avaricious.
“Now let’s get down to business,” he grunted. “You and your robots will do all the shaft work. Dangerous in there. Don’t want any lives lost. Doesn’t matter if a robot or two gets buried in a collapsing tunnel.”
“These robots are living!” I snapped back. “A robot lost is a life lost—”
“All right, all right,” he interrupted petulantly. “But I’m the boss here. What I say goes. Is that understood, Mr. Adam Link?”
Our eyes locked. I didn’t like this attitude. But I could do nothing about it. My official orders were to obey him! I nodded wordlessly.
He grinned. It tickled him, I could see, to have a hard, powerful metal being knuckling down to him. I had the strength of ten men in one arm. Yet he could order me about like a lackey. Jungle law, with the might of authority replacing the might of claws and muscles. Have you humans ever analyzed your so-called “civilization?” Daggert waved a hand to the lounging group of dark-skinned men outside their bunkhouse nearby. Smoking cigarettes, dirty, unkempt, they contrasted harshly with my shiny, upright robot platoon.
“These men I’ve hired will do the work above ground,” Daggert resumed. “Grading ore, sorting, washing and trucking it to San Simone railroad junction, north of here. Mostly Mexes, some Japs. Don’t look like much, but good workers—”
“And cheap!” I suggested in a low whisper. He flushed in anger, but I went on evenly. “Don’t try to deceive me, Daggert. The lower your operating costs, the more you get out of the appropriation money.
“Well, that’s your business. But I warn you, your men are going to have to go some to keep up with my robots. Ore will come out of that shaft like an avalanche.”
“Huh!” Daggert grunted skeptically. “Just a bunch of machines. And machines break down.”
“But they can be repaired quickly,” I said casually. “Your men have to sleep and rest. They get sick and lazy at times. My robots will work twenty-four hours a day without tiring!”
Cheap, boastful statements. But the had the desired effects. Daggert’s lips clamped around his cigar viciously.
“You hear that, men?” he roared. “So you’re trying to show us humans up, Adam Link? Think we haven’t any guts, eh? Okay, I accept the challenge. Get your tin monkeys shoveling out ore—fast! We’ll handle any amount!”
AT least in that, if unwittingly, Daggert was cooperating. I wanted the production curve of Dried Valley Mine to rise at a steep angle. I wanted Washington to know that robots were on the job.
I stuck out my hand, to shake on the agreement. Daggert laughed in my face, ignoring my gracious gesture.
“You—” I began, but broke off, turning my eyes up.
A plane drummed in the sky, soaring over us. I was surprised. No mail or commercial air routes passed over this odd corner of undeveloped territory between the deserts and the Pacific Ocean.
Daggert watched it, then shrugged.
“Mex plane,” he hazarded. “We’re only fifty miles north of the border.”
But I wondered. It had the trim, sleek lines of an ultra-modern fighter plane. A U.S. army plane, out on scout duty?
I dismissed the matter. There was ore to dig.
“Let’s go!” I sang out to my robots. Their line broke and they stalked after me into the shaft penetrating the side of a cliff. The sunlight faded on our metallic forms.
CHAPTER III
Arrival of Mary
WE explored first, and found the old abandoned mine in a state of ruin. The main shaft branched into a half-dozen others. The ends of these splayed out in little separate tunnels, following the haphazard veins of silver.
Once the ore had been rich. But now only low-grade silver-bearing shale remained. The mine could show a profit only if the ore were shoveled out in huge quantities.
The main shaft’s system of bracing beams was in good condition, but further on portions of tunnel had caved in. Debris littered all the corridors. Several of the remote branches were completely blocked off where a section of roof had caved in for yards.
Reaching the last branch tunnel, I halted my robots. We listened. All else had been silent as a tomb. But from this shaft came a low, rubbing sound. I stooped and went in. Ten feet beyond I straightened in a larger hollow.
The beam of my miner’s lamp, fastened to my head-piece, centered on a man. He kneeled in the dirt, a pan in his hand. In the light of a flickering candle he had been panning silver ore, picking out the silver specks and stuffing them in a soiled handkerchief.
He was frozen in that kneeling attitude. His eyes, pop-eyed with terror, danced over my bright metal form.
“Ghosts!” he moaned finally. “They told me there were ghosts down here!”
“I’m no ghost,” I said, smiling within myself. “I’m Adam Link, the robot. What are you doing here?”
“Adam Link? Robot?” Obviously he had never heard of me. He looked the part of one of those wandering prospectors who shunned civilization—a dried-up little old man with a pathetic humbleness about him.
“Who’s inside that iron suit?” he quavered. “Please don’t hurt me. I only been sneaking in here once in a while to pan me a couple ounces silver. Doing nobody no harm. Please, sir, let me go!”
He cringed as though expecting me to strike him.
“I won’t harm you,” I assured him. I wished at that moment my metallic tones could show the kindliness I felt. “What’s your name?”
“Dusty.” At the same time that he gave the single odd name, he scratched his side. His clothes, at the touch, gave off a cloud of dust. The name was self-explanatory.
“Well, Dusty,” I proposed, wondering what to do about him, “suppose you come outside with me. We’ll see what we can do for you.”
I took him straight out to Daggert. I wanted to report on the mine’s condition anyway. Daggert listened to the story, then glowered at the little prospector.
“You little rat!” he growled. “Stealing silver, eh? I’ll teach you—”
His fist shot out at Dusty. But the blow never landed. I have reflexes twice as fast as any human. I caught his wrist. Daggert fell against me, knocking his breath out.
WHEN he regained it, he almost screamed.
“Damn you, Link, don’t interfere! I’m running this show. Let me at him—”
I grasped the enraged man by the shoulders and held him. He weighed 250, with masses of muscle standing out like cords. But he couldn’t move. When he had worn himself out struggling and kicking at me, I released him. He stumbled back, cursing violently.
“Dusty,” I said calmly, “you can continue taking silver out. As much as you want.”
“Oh, boy!” he cried delightedly. “When I get enough, I’ll go and have a bang-up good time at San Simone. Thanks, Mister!”
I don’t know why I did it. Sometimes my own impulses surprise me. I only knew at that moment that it made me strangely happy to see the little man dance with joy.
“Good idea, wearing an iron suit,” he commended me, feeling a little cocky in my protection. “Keeps some grizzlies at their distance.”
Deliberately, he pat
ted his clothes. A cloud of dust emerged and drifted into Daggert’s nostrils.
“Keep out of my way, worm,” Daggert warned, coughing. He eyed me. “As for you, Mr. Clank, get that ore out. Never mind digging up any more forgotten souls. I’ll let it go this time.”
He stamped away.
“That was a nice thing to do, Adam!” Eve’s whisper had sounded in my ear. She understood.
Dusty was looking at us both more closely now.
“Say, pard,” he murmured, “are you or aren’t you a man in an iron suit?”
I explained, as best I could, that I was a robot.
Dusty’s desert-squinted eyes widened steadily. Shock settled over his face. Slowly he pulled a bottle from his pocket and took a long drink of some amber liquid. Whiskey I believed it is called. The shock faded.
“Okay!” he chirped suddenly. “You’re a tin man. But you really got a softer heart, I reckon, than many a hombre I knows. Shake, pal!”
He skipped to the shaft, then, to pan his little bits of future “good time.”
“Eve,” I said, “I wish all humans would accept us as readily and completely as that simple soul!”
NO ORE came from the shaft for three days. It took us that long to clear out the debris, repair the rails and push-cars of the deteriorated railway system, and explore for the best deposits.
Daggert taunted me. “Where’s all this ore you bragged about? Come on, Mr. Clank. You talk big and do small.”
He changed his tune within a week. Carloads of ore began to rumble from the shaft, pushed by my robots at breakneck speed. Deep in the tunnels, picks and shovels filled the enclosed air with a deafening din, wielded by muscles of steel.
“Well, Daggert?” I said, watching his men toiling and sweating on three shifts, handling the deluge of ore.
“You ain’t got us licked!” he snarled. I think he even went to the extent of promising the men more pay!
BUT I didn’t attempt to crowd his men beyond their capacity. I was satisfied that production was high. My robot squad settled down to a top-speed routine. But I had my troubles too. Now and then, one of my men broke a muscle-cable or swivel-cam. He would be carried out and turned over to Eve, above ground. With a stock of replacement parts, she quickly made repairs.
The second week, half of my force developed symptoms of creaky joints. It turned out that the grease we used was too light for that semi-tropical climate. The next truck back from San Simone with supplies brought a drum of heavy axle grease. Our gears and cogs worked smoothly once again.
THEN THERE was Eve.
I gradually noticed that she was becoming strangely taciturn. Pensive and even “blue” moods came over her. One day I emerged from the shaft with Robot Number 18, half carrying him. Eve removed his chest plate and replaced his cracked battery with a new one.
“It’s going great, Eve!” I remarked. “Daggert himself had to admit the mine is paying handsomely.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Washington will be amazed. Then they’ll think of other projects for robots. We’ll work our way up, step by step!”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic, Eve,” I protested. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing,” she returned with a little hitch of her left shoulder. It was a little mannerism I had come to know meant evasiveness.
I shrugged myself; but just then Dusty’s voice sounded. At times he came up to talk to Eve. They had become friends.
“Your skull’s kinda thick, pard,” he piped to me. “You’re down in that shaft twenty-four hours at a stretch, while she’s up here alone with nothing but dumb Mexes and Japs for company.”
“But I can’t let her come down,” I argued for the hundredth time. “It’s dangerous. One of us has to be there, to keep the others going. But in case anything happens to me, Eve has to be left—to carry on. Eve, I’ve told you that you mustn’t worry—”
“Look, pard,” Dusty cut in blandly. “You call yourself human. A man may have a wife, but he needs men friends too. A woman may have a man, but she needs woman friends. It’s as plain as the nose on your—I mean, the rivets on your tin ribs. Your head’s wood instead of iron, if you can’t see that!”
It was as simple as that. In all our previous activities, Eve had had the feminine companionship of Kay Hall, Jack’s wife. Now she had none. I had forgotten she was a human girl, in all but body. Eve needed a girl-friend!
I remedied the situation on the spot. I had three extra iridium-sponge brains on hand, as replacements. They had not yet been given the vital spark of electricity—and life. I brought one to life now, giving it a replacement body, also on hand.
“There, Eve,” I said gently. “Talk to her, teach her. She’ll have the feminine viewpoint from you, just as you acquired it from Kay.”
“I’ll call her Mary!” Eve said delightedly. “Oh, Adam, you don’t know how much this means to me!”
DUSTY gave a pat of satisfaction to his clothes. I had seen him do that dozens of times, and it never failed to raised a cloud of dust.
“Thanks, Dusty,” I said earnestly. “I’ll give you a bag of silver, which represents my week’s pay—”
“No.” He was suddenly sensitive about that. “I’ll pan my own. You’ve done enough for me. Pretty soon I’ll have enough to scoot to San Simone and have a bang-up good time.”
WITHIN A month, Mary began to emerge from Eve’s loving tutelage with a definite personality. With the swiftness of our robot minds, triggered by electrons, she passed through babyhood, girlhood and entered maturity—all in weeks. She was a likable creature, half Eve and half something else of her own.
I suppose it is like human parents watching their child grow up with its own distinct personality.
Strangely, Mary satisfied a hidden parental hunger in both Eve and myself. It tickled us to teach her to call us “Mom” and “Dad”. There are as many purely mental aspects to parenthood as biologic. Yet neither of us could guess, at the time, what Mary’s advent would mean later . . .
But I must not get ahead of my story.
CHAPTER IV
Mary in Trouble
EVENTS moved rapidly after this.
First, there was the day when a sharp crack resounded through the underground caverns. My robots and I straightened up. It came again, ominously.
Following the sound, we ran to a corridor deep within the honeycombed cliff. In the light of our torches, I saw the widening crack that ran the length of the passage. Half-rotted wooden joists were crumbling and buckling.
“This whole passage is going to collapse in a few seconds!” Robot Number Six said behind my ear. “We’d better get a safe distance away!”
Even steel-strong robots must fear the crushing power of tons and tons of rock.
I turned with them, then whirled back with a cry.
“Wait! Dusty is at the end of that corridor. I just remembered. He’ll be sealed off—”
I dashed as near as I dared to the cracking portion and raised my voice to a shout.
“Dusty! Come out! Hurry!”
I heard an answering shout, but from in back of me. Daggert had just come down, on one of his periodic visits. He took the situation in at a glance. He pulled at my arm.
“Get back, you tin fool!” he commanded. “Can’t you see that roof is coming down?”
“But Dusty—”
“Never mind him!” Daggert responded heartlessly. “Serves the little rat right. Get back before you get squashed. You’re more use to me than that broken-down derelict.”
He was figuring dollars and cents, of course. He had no personal liking for me. I simply represented a good high production of ore. Dusty represented nothing in any terms that Daggert valued.
I shook off his arm. “I’m going after Dusty—”
“You loco brass mule!” Daggert was screaming. “Don’t go!”
I didn’t. I barked orders to my robots clustered behind me, instead. They hesitated, g
lancing at one another. They had obeyed me implicitly in all things. But this—
“Good Lord, you’re insane!” Daggert gasped. “Are you willing to risk every robot here for the life of a worthless bum?”
“Come!” I thundered, dashing into the corridor. My robots followed.
Alloy feet pounding thunderously, we sped under that cracking ceiling. A hundred feet in, I halted.
“Shoulders to the ceiling. Hold firm, men!”
It must have been a strange sight to Daggert. Thirty robots spaced along that corridor, shoulders against the sagging ceiling, legs spread for purchase. With a low rumble, the ceiling gave way. But it didn’t crunch to the floor. Thirty metal Atlases held it up! Gears clashed, cogs scraped, wheels within whined as machine-power fought the terrific pull of all-powerful gravity.
I watched with bated breath, to use the idiom. If gravity won, my thirty robots would be smashed to bits under the grinding load. Dusty and I, in the pocket at the end, would be buried beyond hope of ever seeing daylight again.
But my robots won. The ceiling stayed up. Thirty robots virtually held a mountain on their backs.
I TURNED. Dusty was calmly sleeping, slumped against the wall, his ore pan slipping from his fingers. I swept him into my arms and weaved down the corridor past the robots. I pulled erect before Daggert and set Dusty on his feet. He was rubbing his eyes, bewildered.
There was still danger for my robots. One by one, beginning at the far end, they raced forward at my order, and helped support the front end. As each robot left his position, a mass of rock fell. One by one they returned from the jaws of destruction.
The last three came out with a rush together, as the ceiling let loose completely. Two skipped to safety, but the last was caught under a falling, thundering avalanche. When we pulled away loose shale and dragged Number Eleven out, we saw that his head had been cracked like an eggshell. His iridium-sponge brain was in shreds. He was dead.