by Eando Binder
“This is to be your city. But also that of my hundred robots. Together, you will live a good life.”
Utopia had begun!
CHAPTER III
Atomic-power in Utopia
EVENTS crowded one another after this.
In a month, Sam Harley had another question. He was the understood leader of the people.
“We can’t understand how it will work, Adam Link. You have a power-plant ready to run the factories. But there is no source of electricity in this God-forsaken region. Boulder Dam won’t run a line up here into nowhere. You’ve been supplying our homes with current from Diesel-generators. But oil is expensive to bring here, by truck. Shipping coal wouldn’t be much cheaper. How can the city support itself, if it can’t run its factory economically?”
“Be patient,” I admonished. “I’m working on that angle. In the meantime, enjoy the city’s recreations, and don’t worry.”
Harley left dubiously.
My robots, who acted as police and part-time servants, began to report uneasiness among the human population. They wondered if they had been impulsively duped into something that could not work. And perhaps this was all a great hoax, or plot. Maybe the robots were planning some diabolical experiment, with humans as guinea-pigs!
Such thoughts and suspicions began to waft through the city.
“We will have to work harder, Frank Steele,” I said to my assistant. “We must finish our last item and install it, before the humans convince themselves this is all a futile dream.”
Frank Steele nodded, but often when I turned around, I would find him gone, without a word. In exasperation one night, I sought him out. He was at the top of the Administration Tower—with Eve.
“I need you,” I said tersely. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t be such a slave-driver, Adam,” Eve spoke up. “Frank only comes up here for relaxation at times, as I do.”
I hadn’t seen much of Eve, since the humans came. While I labored hermitlike in the lab, it was her job to keep watch over things in the city. The distribution of food, clothing, and settling minor differences between the new inhabitants. A general nursemaid. No small task. I could not blame her for skipping up here at times, to get away from it.
“Relax,” Frank Steele said easily to me. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, either.”
I REALIZED now how I had been driving myself, day and night, inventing and perfecting. I looked out over the city, taking a deep breath mentally.
The view was striking. The city lay under a full moon, glowing softly. The higher spires were hung with lamps, shedding indirect lighting on the streets below. Yes, I had succeeded in making Utopia City the most beautiful on Earth, like an oasis in a world of badly done things. It was an enchanted scene, like some romantic fairyland from the pages of a gifted pen.
Romantic!
Quite suddenly I realized, too, that Eve had been a little strange to me, the few times she visited the laboratory. She had seen more of Frank Steele than me, for weeks. Did it mean—
But then I mentally kicked myself, and laughed. Jealousy! Was it creeping up in me, a robot, as in any human heart? But no human could be as sure of his mate as I was of Eve. I dismissed the thought.
Before we went below, a drone sounded from the sky. A mail-plane skimmed high, from the north. Suddenly it broke from its straight course, almost like a person passing a queer sight and turning with a gasp. The plane circled a half dozen times, lower and lower, then veered off on its scheduled route.
I smiled. I could just picture the pilot shaking his head and wondering whether to report the incredible sight or not. An amazing, elfin city out in the middle of the desert! He had accidentally swung this way, off his usual course. Maybe his imagination was playing him tricks!
Strange, but no inkling of Utopia City had yet reached the outside world. Or at least no official notice. None suspected its existence except those who had come to see in person—and stayed.
But I knew that soon the world would know. What then? Would we be plagued, pestered, perhaps interfered with?
THE test came the very next day, in response to the mail-pilot’s report, undoubtedly. With a scream of sirens, a dozen motorcycles escorted a State Ranger squad up. I met the head official just outside the city. He and his men stared in amazement at the city, where for ages there had been only desolation.
“Just like they all said,” the officer muttered. “A city built out in the desert by Adam Link!” Evidently reports had been drifting in and accumulating. He turned to me. “I’m in charge of the State Rangers of Nevada. What legal right, if any, have you to—to—”
“Mar the scenery?” I said with quiet irony. I held out papers. “This is a 99-year lease, on this section of desert land, granted me by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation.”
I had not been so foolish as to ignore the legal aspect. Money had greased many palms of politicians, before I even started. I had not lived among humans for three years, studying their ways, for nothing. I knew how to “get along.”
The papers were in order. The ranger grunted, then frowned.
“But you have people here! How do we know what you’re doing with them? By God, this can’t go on, whatever it is. You can’t dabble with human lives. You, a robot!”
I tried to explain.
“Utopia?” he sneered. “Is that what you’re trying to do? Won’t work. Besides, you robots have some other plan up your sleeve. I’ve always said, since I heard of you, Adam Link, that you should be destroyed. Robots can’t be trusted, that’s all. They’re bound to become Frankensteins, sooner or later.”
Some of my robots had clattered up from the city. They stood in a phalanx beside me. Nervously, the rangers began fingering their holsters and edging away. But the last thing in the world my robots were thinking of was attacking. Like me, they were only amazed, and sad, at this brusque denouncement.
“Leave us in peace,” I begged. “We are doing no harm. Besides, the lease—”
“It gives you legal rights to the land,” the officer retorted. “But not over humans. I’m taking them out of your hands.” I looked at Eve, brokenly. The forces of law could not be opposed. Was there no escape? Was my dream already a bursting bubble? Was Utopia City, so newly launched, already to blink into failure, to be set alongside Sir Thomas More’s imaginary Utopia?
But what could I do against the world which this officer represented?
“How did you force these people here?” the man was asking, shaking his head. “I can’t understand it. But anyway, I’ll put a quick stop to it. These people have the right to live their own lives—”
“Exactly, mister!”
JED TOMKINS had stepped up, followed by most of the others. He was hardly the Jed Tomkins of two months before. He was clean-shaven, neatly dressed, and twenty pounds heavier. He sent a stream of tobacco-juice in the dirt. That one thing had clung.
“We got the right, as you say, to live our own lives,” he went on. “And by Tim, we are! We want to live here, in Adam Link’s city. He’s treating us swell. Better than we ever got treated before in our whole lives. We’re staying, see? And you nor all the soldier boys in creation can’t take us out.”
There was stunned silence for a moment. Then a shout of assent rose from the massed crowd behind. Another man stepped forward. He had formerly been a lawyer, with a slumping practice.
“Ever hear of the Bill of Rights, Mr. Ranger? You can’t tamper with that. And if you, or any group, thinks of bringing this up in court, you’ll have 5000 adult witnesses testifying against you in the Supreme Court, before we’re through. That’s how much we want to be rescued from the clutches of a Frankenstein robot named Adam Link! Hurray for Adam Link!” The cry instantly thundered from all their throats. And the cry, I knew, would echo throughout the land.
Utopia was saved.
The rangers, bewildered, turned away like whipped dogs. Their vehicles vanished in the distance.
I turned.
“Forget it, Adam,” Jed Tomkins returned, embarrassed. “We know you’re for us. We know this is our home for life.” Another voice sounded, the rather strident one of Sam Harley.
“But still, how do we know?” he challenged. He had not joined in the cheering. And certain others. “There’s still no power-plant to run the factories. We still aren’t producing. You’ve paid the bill on everything so far, Adam Link. When will we have to pay you back—and how?” The listening people fell silent, glancing at each other. It had been growing in their minds, like a poisonous mushroom. The use of the word Frankenstein before left its lurking echo in the air. What would the dread payment be, if it wasn’t money? What monstrous cabal had spawned in the cold minds of the robots who had inveigled 10,000 helpless humans into the middle of a desert?
The atmosphere had quite suddenly changed.
“They’re going to murder us!” a hysterical voice rang out. Some human mind had brooded too long. “The robots are going to spill our blood in the sand, in hatred of the human race, and laugh—laugh—”
“Silence!” I thundered, cowing them.
A crisis had again come up, more deadly than the other. “Back into the city, all of you. Go to the power-plant facing Utopia Square. There you shall see what I’ve prepared for you!”
THEY had to go. My robots, at a signal, had formed a line. Like police, they herded the humans back into the city, down the streets to Utopia Square. They went in stunned, fearful silence. Jed Tomkins looked at me puzzled. Puzzled, but with trust.
The large portals of the power-plant were open. Frank Steele stood framed in the doorway. The people glanced beyond him into the plant—and gasped. The dozen Deisel-generators which had been supplying electricity were dismantled. There would be no current now, to run the city. It had all been an elaborate hoax. The robots would now have their long-planned, insane orgy of tearing human beings to little shreds in their superstrong, merciless metal fingers!
I stepped on a platform, previously erected.
“People of Utopia! You have all been wondering what my final plans were. You have been wondering what will run this city, in terms of dollars and cents. Here is my answer—”
I unveiled a square metal box, two feet high.
“This power-unit,” I said, “will give out enough electricity to light every home, work every toaster, iron, household appliance, elevator, electric auto, and factory. And a thousand more, if necessary!”
Sam Harley elbowed forward.
“What, that little box? Come clean, Adam Link, what’s your racket? You’ve got us in your power. What’s the bad news?”
He was pale, frightened, waiting as all the rest were to hear some terrible pronouncement, when I was through playing my horrible little game.
I threw a switch on the box. A heavy, insulated cable led indoors to the relay board. The box hummed suddenly, as though filled with a million angry bees. And the crowd jumped back as a rumble sounded from every factory nearby. A thousand dead machines came to life, all fed from this small box-generator.
“What does that box produce” Sam Harley gasped.
“Atomic power!” I said proudly.
Most of them did not understand. But here and there a head shot up. Some of the men had been engineers and scientists, their lives broken by drink, or misfortune, or fate. They knew what it meant. And they would tell the others.
Sam Harley understood.
“Atomic power!” he breathed. “You’ve accomplished that, Adam Link?”
I nodded.
“Finished it this morning. I worked on it two months. It will run the factories, citizens of Utopia. Its fuel is sand. It will use a ton a year—costing ten cents. This is my gift to mankind!”
Sam Harley was suddenly ashamed. All the human faces back of him were ashamed for their groundless alarm of the hour before.
I stared around.
“I hope you will remember this. Never again mistrust robots, simply because they are monsters to your physical eyes.”
PROUDLY I patted the machine, my greatest inventive achievement. It represented the step ahead of present-day cyclotron research, where atomic-power had been released in the laboratory, in minute amounts. I had simply stepped up the quantity to commercial proportions. Man might putter along another century, before duplicating that laborious step.
I spoke again.
“Utopia City is in full swing, from this day on. The factories will now produce. You will each earn your livelihood. But there will be no money involved. Each man—human or robot—is to give five hours of his daily time, attending the machines or related work. When the factories produce, the city will have a gross income. This income will be used to buy the city’s necessities. Food, clothing, and all necessary personal items will be distributed as heretofore—according to need. Not according to any scale of who has the most dollars and cents.”
I paused, to let that sink in.
“You will each also be entitled to an automobile, television set, and all household appliances, according to families. The city’s electrical current is yours to use at any and all times. Among other things, my robots will tomorrow install air conditioning units in every home and building.” All eyes were thankful, as they wiped their foreheads. The desert summer was hot, though the nights were cool.
“You will have much leisure time,” I resumed. “I need not mention the various recreational centers, for you have used them—theatres, sport arenas, and libraries. Your children will be taught by robots. There will be classes for adults, too, who wish to further their education.”
I was merely sketching the future of life in Utopia. A hundred and one other innovations would be geared in, till it was truly the practical Paradise I visioned. But one more thing I had to impress oh them.
“Last, but perhaps most important of all—you are to accept my robots as fellow beings. They will work with you, talk with you, play with you. Side by side, robots and humans will create the better life. In time, Utopia City will dazzle the world, like a diamond in the sordid setting of present-day civilization. We will be the envy of all mankind!”
I waved an arm.
“That is all,” I concluded. “I give you—Utopia!”
CHAPTER IV
Adam Link Gets a Medal
SIX months sped by.
Utopia, after its sputtering start, rose smoothly into the sky of history.
The world slowly came out of its somnolence, lifted its head, and listened. What was this busy, humming, happy community out in the wastelands? Who had achieved the good life, when all the rest of the world was wracked with innumerable troubles?
Reporters came first, their noses sniffing out something sensational.
I’ll never forget the young man, Pete Crane, who claimed he could find faults in my so-called Utopia. He stood before the city, having just arrived, staring.
“Beautiful, all right—from a distance,” he said cynically. “Your Eden, eh? Hm, swell heading—‘Adam and Eve Link Build Modern Eden.’ But I’ll bet you I can find a dozen holes in your set-up. Utopia—bah! Bet you any amount you say, Adam Link.”
“Let’s say a million dollars,” I agreed.
“Make it a hundred,” Crane, said hurriedly. “Week’s pay. Let’s go.”
I took him for an auto ride, first, through tree-and-flower lined drives. Another car suddenly came swiftly toward us. It would be a head-on crash! But five feet from us, the other car bounced against our invisible bumper of force. It stopped dead. Our car, too. I explained.
“But why weren’t our heads snapped off by the abrupt stop?” Crane asked dazedly. “At least mine, if not your iron one?”
“Molecular deceleration,” I said. “Taking up the shock in every atom. There are no auto-accidents in Utopia City. There can be none.”
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nbsp; I took him within a building, where cooling drafts of air made him sigh contentedly. An elevator soundlessly took us twenty stories high in three seconds, by anti-gravity. From here we surveyed the city, spread like a fabulous garden-city inhabited by gods. We went through the office buildings, where clerks sat at desks bathed in softened sunlight that came through transparent steel. All were tanned, healthy, in good humor, so unlike the pale, worried, dissatisfied clerks in big cities.
In the spotless factory, spinning looms manufactured a synthetic, plastic cloth of my own invention, far superior to rayon, nylon, or any other artificial thread. It was Utopia City’s sole product. In the outside markets it was selling steadily, being softer than silk, practically indestructible, and half as expensive.
In the schools, we listened to children reciting their lesson, under the guidance of robot teachers. Crane grunted a little when a six-year old worked out an algebraic problem, and a teen-age boy worked out the precession of Mercury’s orbit by Einstein’s Relativity.
After working hours, Crane watched two teams of men play baseball in a huge arena, with an ease and skill of Major League calibre, trained by robots. Wandering on, music filled the air from large horns at every street corner, stirring symphonies interspersed with light-classical selections and occasional swing. The city itself was noiseless, smokeless, and sparkling with cleanliness.
In the libraries, men and women of all ages browsed through books of proven worth. In corners, humans and robots together gravely discussed the things of life and the universe. Outside the open windows sounded the cries of happy children, playing among the trees.
PETE CRANE said little. At the end of the day, I turned to him.
“Well, Mr. Crane? You may tell me the dozen flaws now, before you leave.”
“Leave?” he said. “I’m staying—if I can!”
“Sorry,” I had to reply. “There is no room. Perhaps the outside world will copy Utopia City eventually.”