Adam Link: The Complete Adventures

by Eando Binder

  “If not, the outside world is plain loco.” He left with the air of a man expelled from Paradise. I had laughingly refused his hundred dollars, on the bet, but I saw his editorial the next day. I had been watching the newspapers avidly, having them delivered at the nearest railroad junction where they were picked up by truck, as with all our supplies.

  “Adam and Eve Link have actually achieved a present-day Eden,” he wrote. “In plain dollars and cents, his city is run more economically than any city on Earth. The standard of living is higher than for any group of humans in history. Their cost of living, due to advanced scientific and social methods, is ridiculously low. Adam Link is proving to this bad old world that their methods are slipshod, obsolete, and socially criminal.

  “Also, at the same time, he is proving that human beings can be uplifted by proper environment. The poor, formerly indifferent wretches that came to him have become energetic, useful, happy citizens. With much leisure time, they are rapidly gaining culture in libraries and classes. Their children play happily in great parks without danger.

  “Most amazing of all is the robot feature. They mix with the humans, having long discussions on how best to run the city for the benefit of all. Robots and humans together, they have begun a truly good life. Adam Link has achieved his goal. He has devised a practical Utopia, the dream of mankind for ages! There is no crime in his city. No slums. Not one underprivileged person. Utopia! It is that. There is no flaw in it!”

  Was there no flaw in it?

  I LEFT the Administration Building one day, to meet Eve at the West school, where it was her delight to teach children.

  “She left,” I was informed by a loitering tot, “with another can-man.” The children, in innocent disrespect, called all robots “can-men,” to distinguish them from “real” men, I drove around the city, at a reckless pace, to find them. Finally, from a tower, I saw them way out in the desert, glinting.

  I strode out there. It was dusk, with the purples and pastels of sunset fingering over the sand.

  They didn’t hear me come up.

  “Sunset is so lovely out here on the desert,” Eve was murmuring.

  “You’re lovely, too, Eve—mentally!”

  My metal feet clinked against a stone. Frank Steele whirled, then stood like a man might, enraged and panting.

  “Spying on us?” he snapped.

  “Oh, Adam,” Eve said. “Why must you be this way? Frank is lonely, naturally. He needs a mental mate. All the robot-men will, eventually, as they see so much of human life. Have you thought of that?” No, I hadn’t. I couldn’t blame Frank Steele for the yearnings I had had too, before Eve. The natural urge for a close, intimate companionship of the mind. I had come out with harsh words on my lips.

  I left without saying a word.

  Number Nine met me in the city, with a boy perched on his shoulders, whooping in delight.

  “Adam Link!” he hailed. “This little boy asked me to take Mm home. But I don’t know where he lives!”

  “Why didn’t you ask him?” I demanded irritably, knowing that kindly-souled but somewhat addled Number Nine had silently toted the boy without thinking of asking.

  I went to my private office in the Administration Building, from which I handled the multitudinous executive affairs of Utopia City. Utopia? Purgatory, rather, with Eve lost to me. Yes, that was the bitter truth. How had it happened? What should I do?

  I was aware suddenly that Number was in the doorway, watching me.

  “Get out of my sight!” I snapped. “Must you always be under my feet? No matter which way I turn, there you are. Go away.”

  I was taking it out on Number Nine. He didn’t go.

  “But you are sad,” he said. “And when you are sad, I am too—father.”

  “Father?” I exploded. “I’m not your father.”

  “You created me,” Number Nine returned. “The humans call some father. If you aren’t my father, then what are you?”

  “Does it matter?” I roared. “Get out of my sight, you poor, dumb, scatterbrained—”

  I choked back the rest, when he left, and felt utterly ashamed. Number Nine loved me, in his own way, following me around like a dog. Loved me, as Eve didn’t—

  Eve appeared suddenly, in the doorway. She gazed at me, with my head in my hands.

  “Poor dear,” she said softly. “Number Nine was right. You are jealous. I’m glad! I did it only to make you jealous! Do you know you hardly noticed me, for weeks and weeks?”

  “Eve! I’ve been so busy—” But I stopped giving excuses, and rectified the matter, high in the tower under the moon. I told her that in all the universe, there could be no love like ours.

  There was no flaw in Utopia after all!

  AFTER Crane’s editorial, the world began to take notice. Adam Link’s silly experiment was turning out well. Commissions came from business firms, social societies, and even the government, to observe and take notes. Business men tried to buy my inventions.

  “I’m prepared,” said one,” to write you out a check for one million dollars, for patent rights to the atomic-power process.”

  I shook my head instantly.

  “Ten million!” he offered. “A hundred million!”

  I smiled within myself.

  “Money isn’t used in Utopia City. Besides, if I wished, I could buy you out, ten times over.”

  “But atomic-power! It’s the greatest thing since the steam-engine. The world must have it!”

  “The world must first prove itself worthy,” I retorted, politely but firmly requesting his departure.

  But the high spot of it all was when Number Nine, my errand boy, came stumbling in one day.

  “Some men to see you,” he announced. “Out on the steps.”

  “On the steps? Why didn’t you show them in? I’ve told you time and again humans must be treated politely. Who are they?”

  Number Nine shrugged, rolling his eyes.

  “And I’ve told you over and over to ask who they are!” I scolded him. Sometimes Number Nine really aroused my anger for his sheer dumbness. I was sorry I had created such a miserable specimen of a robot.

  I stalked out—and gasped.

  The whole thing had been staged, obviously with Eve’s connivance. All the human population of the city stood before the building, and my hundred robots. A group of ten men and women stood on the steps.

  “We are a committee from the Social Service Society,” one man stated.

  He strode up to me, and pinned a bronze medal on my chest—or tried to pin it. Eve darted forward, while the crowd chuckled, and hooked the medallion over a rivet-stud, by using all the pressure of her superstrong fingers.

  Then the medal blazed out, against my duller body finish.

  I was speechless.

  Recovering his poise, the man spoke.

  “This medal proclaims that one Adam Link, for meritorious social service to humanity, is hereby entered in the Hall of Fame!”

  Hall of Fame! My cup was complete. All the trials and despair of the past were over. The world at last accepted Adam Link, the robot, in honor and esteem.

  I couldn’t say a word. I could only stand, almost trembling, and wish my creator were here beside me, to know that he had not made a mistake, bringing a metal-brain to life. So many times I had thought it a mistake.

  When the committee left, I nudged Eve.

  “Well, Eve,” I couldn’t help crowing. “Here’s Utopia. You said it wouldn’t work.”

  “I was wrong, Adam, wasn’t I?”

  It didn’t occur to me till later that, like a woman, she had not quite conceded my victory. Was she reserving judgment till later.

  CHAPTER V

  Trouble in Utopia

  AND suddenly, a cloud settled over the clear horizon.

  Sam Harley came in one day, after working hours, with a dozen men behind him.

  “Anything wrong?” I asked, seeing his face set in rather grim lines. Usually the humans flocked to the rec
reational centers and libraries after work. “Is there anything lacking, in the line of amusements? If so, let me know. I’m ready to add anything to make life worth while.”

  “Yes, there’s something lacking, all right,” Sam Harley agreed. “And it isn’t recreation or reading. We’re tired of that. There are more important things in life.”

  “What?” I was puzzled.

  “Government,” Harley said succinctly. “Human government!”

  I felt as though he had thrown a bomb in my face. So far, in Utopia City, there had been no definite “government.” Everyone simply worked, and lived, and enjoyed life free from care and worry. I thought it was sufficient. But now, what was this strange attitude voiced by Sam Harley and his followers?

  I waited, and he went on.

  “I’ve formed a party. Gaining members, I’m now in a position to form a civic government.”

  “But I’m the civic government,” I remonstrated. “Are you dissatisfied with me?”

  “No-o,” he drew out the word slowly. “No, not exactly. But it wouldn’t be right for you, a robot, to continue as our pseudoruler. Give us back our affairs in our own hands.”

  And then I knew. It was a minor “revolution” for “independence.” I could not blame them. The human spirit chafes under imposed “rule.” Then I laughed. It really didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Let them set up their little “government” and pretend to rule. I would still be the power behind the throne. Or the guiding hand. They were like children.

  I gave in, realizing it must be so.

  Sam Harley promptly moved into the Administration Building, next to my office. “Mayor of Utopia City” was painted on his door. He apportioned various offices to his followers, and the city government was duly installed. The printing office was ordered to put a headline in the Utopia City News—“Sam Harley Appointed Mayor by Adam Link!”

  IT relieved me of many petty details in the running of the city. I had more free time, and dived eagerly into my laboratory-work once again. I wanted to add to my roster of inventions that would oil the progress of Utopia City more and more. “Thomas Edison Link on the job,” I told Eve happily. “Mankind has been puttering along, with one foot back in the jungle. The true machine age is around the comer, and with it their pathetic bleat for Prosperity.”

  Eve seemed thoughtful.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have done it, Adam—let Harley become mayor, with all the authority that implies.”

  “The city practically runs itself,” I laughed. “Harley doesn’t know it, but he’s a figurehead, nothing more.”

  “Still, human nature—” Eve said vaguely. But I wasn’t listening. I was inventing an electric light-bulb that gave off no waste heat.

  Number Nine came rushing in, his eye-shutters clicking as his slow-witted brain tried to form words.

  “Adam Link!” he finally stuttered. “They’re having an argument—the humans! Come and see. It’s funny!”

  But it wasn’t humorous at all. Racing to the Administration Building, I saw the scene on the broad stone steps, Harley and his group, at the top, faced a mob below who were hooting and yelling. It was close to midnight. Why weren’t they in bed?

  The two groups seemed about to clash. I stepped between. To back me up, several of my all-night robot police arrived from their stations. Frank Steele came running from the power-house where he was chief engineer, watching over the atomic-power unit.

  The humans eased back, at this show of authority.

  “What is going on?” I demanded.

  “I heard threats all day,” Harley answered. “I kept my men here tonight, to protect our files. That crazy mob down there wants to wreck my office. But I’m mayor!”

  The crowd howled. “We want an election! We want an election!”

  “Silence!” I roared. “I don’t understand.”

  Jed Tomkins stepped forward, from the group below.

  “It’s like this, Adam Link,” he explained, while the others quieted. “You set up Sam Harley as mayor. But all the people don’t like him as mayor. There should have been an election, like everywhere else in this country!”

  Great heavens above! What had I started?

  I DECIDED to put a stop to all the foolishness, here and now.

  “There won’t be a mayor at all,” I stated, “since you humans must wrangle over it. I was your mayor, or patriarch, before. I re-install myself. Sorry, Harley, but you may move out tomorrow—”

  “Yeah?” Harley drew a paper from his inner clothing and waved it. “You signed this, Adam Link. It officially empowers me as mayor, for one year!”

  Yes, I had signed the silly document, without thinking twice. A groan came from the crowd below. Then a shout of rage.

  But my answering shout of rage drowned theirs.

  “Fools!” My amplified voice beat back from the buildings. “I’ll have no more of this. Sam Harley is mayor, since I signed him into that office. But his term is only one year. And he will answer to me for any mismanagement of affairs in Utopia City!”

  My voice changed to pleading.

  “This is all so unnecessary. Please keep your heads. Remember that you are living a better life here than ever before. Keep it so!”

  The logic bit home. The crowd dispersed quietly. Sam Harley ducked back into his office. But I was not so dismayed.

  “Just letting off a little steam,” I said to my robots. “Humans are like that. When there is no trouble, they try to make it, for a bit of excitement. Tomorrow they’ll be as meek as lambs, and laughing over it.”

  “Strange creatures,” Frank Steele mused.

  “They wish to dominate one another. By the way, is Harley our mayor, too? Yesterday he ordered me to make another atomic-power unit, in case this one breaks down. He put it as a suggestion.”

  “Ignore the suggestion,” I said. “Harley is testing his range of authority. This will all straighten out soon.”

  I was annoyed at the way Eve glanced at me, and then up at the stars, questioningly.

  THE stars looked down, questioningly themselves, in the following weeks. There was dissension in Utopia!

  First of all, a strike was called in Factory One. Jed Tomkins had formed a union. The issue was why Sam Harley and his group should loll in their offices, merely giving orders, when others had to work. Fist-fights occurred.

  “Adam, you must do something!” Eve cried. “Utopia is falling apart!”

  “Nonsense, Eve!” I said calmly. “It is a good sign, of a healthy, vigorous people. Anyway, nothing in life is faultlessly smooth. The society from which they come is also a vigorous, sometimes bickering democracy. Be patient. Let them get it out of their systems, this quarreling. Remember Utopian life is still new to them. Let them have a bit of the old life, for comparison. Then they’ll wake as from a bad dream, and all will be well.”

  But I was jolted out of this philosophical calm.

  Number Nine one day displayed a green piece of paper with scrollwork on it. There was an engraving of myself on one side, Harley on the other, and a large numeral One in the comers.

  “Where did you get it?” I rasped.

  “From Sam Harley,” Number Nine said. “I ran an errand for him, and he said, here’s a tip. He called it money. Just think, Adam, with this I can buy a big meal anywhere in town!” He grunted, then. “Wait, I don’t need food! Was Harley laughing at me, like everybody else?”

  Money!

  The word was like a falling mountain. I raced up the Administration steps with such speed that chips of stone flew under my heel-plates. I yanked the door nearly off its hinges.

  Harley sat with stacks of green paper before him, marked in ones, fives, tens and twenties. He looked up.

  “Hello, Adam. Now don’t get excited. Sure this is money, printed by myself. Did you think you could run the city forever without it? Nice theory, working in brotherhood and all that, but you need a fundamental basis for exchange of goods.” He watched me carefully, trying to read my rea
ction. But I was just unmoving metal to him, as expressionless as a statue.

  “Do you like your picture on it?” he finished lamely.

  “Yes,” I said. Even he was surprised. I let him think that I was flattered over the inscription under my picture—“Adam Link, great founder of Utopia City.”

  “You’re right, Harley,” I said. “We do need currency to keep the economic machinery oiled and going.”

  Let them get that out of their systems, too.

  Harley grinned in pleasure.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere, Adam. Between you and me we’ll get Utopia City on a solid, real foundation. Your other system was only temporary. All the people are realizing that, gradually.”

  I left, grinning also within myself. Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself. That was the way to do it. Let the mayor-ship, spawned from the old system of the outer world, smell to high heaven. When it fell, it would bury with it all future dabbling in “politics.” Then Utopia would take its second wind, and climb the heights.

  After all, the end was worth the means. So the mind of Adam Link reasoned, in this new crisis.

  CHAPTER VI

  Revolt in Utopia!

  SUSPENSE hung like a dark cloud over Utopia City.

  More strikes occurred, against the regime in power. Harley struck back. He instituted “wages” for all labor, and withheld funds from the strikers. He clamped down on the free distribution of food and clothing, deliberately underfeeding the strikers, since they had no money with which to “buy.”

  Jed Tomkins led a mob to the food warehouse, and broke in. Rioting resulted. For twenty-four hours, holding the warehouse, Jed Tomkins set himself up as mayor, by accord of the majority, Harley set fire to the place, driving the short-lived rival government out.

  I called my robots to put out the fire. They waded into the burning building, stamping and beating, and put the final embers out with water. No other building was endangered, as no buildings in Utopia were near one another.

  But I forbade my robots to interfere in the human doings. They looked on in utter amazement.

  “They’ll pull the city down over their ears!” Frank Steele gasped. “All humans are mad!”