by Eando Binder
Suddenly a gleam came into his eyes.
“You are lonely, Adam Link. You have no one like yourself to talk to, to share companionship. Well, you fool, why not make another robot?”
I stopped. Stopped dead at the brink of the cliff. I stared down five hundred feet at the shattering rocks below. Then I turned away; went back. Dr. Hillory had won.
He stayed to help me. I had a completely equipped workshop and laboratory. I ordered the parts I needed through the devious channels I had thought necessary to my isolation when I built the hideaway. Within a month, a second iridium-sponge brain lay in its head-case, on my workbench.
Dr. Link, my creator, had taken twenty years to build my complex metal brain. I duplicated the feat in a month. Dr. Link had had to devise every step from zero. I had only to follow his beaten path. As an added factor, I work and think with a rapidity unknown to you humans. And I work twenty-four hours a day.
The time had come to test the new metal-brain. Dr. Hillory was vastly nervous. And also strangely eager. His face at times annoyed me. I could not read behind it.
I paused when the electrical cord had been attached to the neck cable of the metal-brain head, resting with eyes closed on a porcelain slab.
“I had thought of this before, of course,” I informed my companion. “Making a second metal-brain. But I had reasoned that it would come to life and know the bitter loneliness I knew. I did not think of her having my companionship, and I hers.”
“Hers!”
Dr. Hillory was staring at me open-mouthed.
For a moment I myself was startled. I had given myself away, and somehow, before this elderly man, I felt—embarrassed. I felt like a teen-age youngster, experiencing his first love affair. In all except the actual fact, I blushed. Metal, fortunately, does not act like the thermometer of human faces, recording human feelings.
But it was too late to hide what I meant from the canny scientist. Besides, he had to know sooner or later. I went on.
“When you stopped me at the cliff, you said why not make another robot? I had been thinking of Kay Temple at the moment. The picture of the robot that leaped into my mind, then, was not one like myself. Not mentally. The outward form would not matter. I was brought up from the masculine viewpoint. This robot-mind must be given the feminine outlook.”
My mechanical voice went down in tone.
“Her name will be—Eve!”
Dr. Hillory had recovered himself. “And how will you accomplish this miracle?” he said skeptically.
“Simply enough. She must be brought up in the presence of a woman. Her thought-processes, her entire outlook, will automatically be that of a woman. You must do this for me, Dr. Hillory. You are my friend. You must go to the city and see Kay Temple for me—now Mrs. Jack Hall. She is the only one who can make my plans come true. She must be the companion for Eve.”
Dr. Hillory sat down, shaking his head a little dazedly. I could appreciate how he felt. Bringing a girl up here to teach a metal monster to be sweet, gentle-natured, feminine! Like trying to bring up a forest creature of lionlike build and strength to be a harmless, playful kitten. It was incongruous. Even I had my doubts. But I had equal determination.
“I suppose,” he said, with a trace of the cynicism that lurked somewhere in his character, “that you will want your—Eve—to learn to giggle, like a school-girl.”
I didn’t answer.
Instead, I switched on the electric current. Slowly I rheostated it up, to reach the point at which electrons would drum through the iridium-sponge brain, as thoughts drum in the human mind under the forces of life. I watched, holding my breath—no, I have no breath. Sometimes I forget I am a metal man. But the idiom stands as descriptive of my feelings.
For what if the metal-brain were a failure? What if my brain was what it was by sheer accident, not the result of Dr. Link’s creative genius? What if, after all, the process could not be repeated again—ever!
Loneliness. Extinction. Again my life would be wedged in maddeningly between those two words.
I held my breath, I repeat. I heard the hum of the electron-discharge, coursing through the metal-brain I hoped to bring j to life. And then—movement. The eyelids of the head flicked open. The brain saw. The eyelids clicked shut again, as though the brain had been startled at its sight. Then they opened and shut several more times, exactly as a human being might blink, awaking from some mysterious sleep.
“It’s alive,” whispered Dr. Hillory. “The brain is alive, Adam Link. We’ve succeeded!”
I looked down at the blinking head. The eyes seemed to look into mine, wonderingly.
“Eve!” I murmured. “My Eve!”
When we had completed the body, similar to mine but somewhat smaller, Dr. Hillory went to the city. He came back with Jack and Kay. They had come without question, immediately.
“Adam Link,” Jack called as soon as he stepped from his car. “Adam, old boy! We’ve been wondering and worrying about you. Why did you run off like that? Why didn’t you get in touch with us sooner, you tin idiot . . .”
Jack was just covering up his intense joy at seeing me, with those words. It was good to see him too, he who was my staunch friend and looked upon me more as man than robot.
Kay came up. The air seemed to hush. We stared at each other, not speaking a word.
Something inside of me turned over. My heart—as real as the “heart” with which you humans love and yearn—stopped beating. I had fled from her, but had not escaped. It was plain, now. And Kay? What was she thinking, she who had such a short time ago seen me as a man behind the illusion of metal.
A man she could love . . .
Jack glanced from one to the other of us. “Say, what’s the matter with you two? You’re staring at each other as though you’d never met before. Kay—”
Jack of course didn’t know. She had not told him; he would not understand. And my last letter to Jack had told a halftruth, that there could never be another man in Kay’s life but Jack.
“Nothing, darling,” Kay spoke. She took a deep breath, squeezing his arm. And then I saw how radiantly happy she was. It was an aura about her. They had been married two months. I felt a surge of joy. Kay had found herself. And I would too, soon, in a companion like myself in outward form, and like Kay inwardly.
They agreed to my plan enthusiastically.
“I take credit for the idea originally,” said Jack in mock boastfulness. “You remember once, Adam, that I suggested you make another robot, give it the feminine viewpoint, and you were automatically her lord and master.”
Kay touched my arm. “I’ll try to make her a girl you can be proud of, Adam.”
“With you training her, that is assured,” I returned, with more than mere gallantry.
“Well, let’s get to work,” said Dr. Hillory, impatiently. He had stood by with a look in his face that seemed to say it was all rather foolish. “You two can use my cabin,” he said to Jack and Kay. “It’s only a mile away.”
Kay came every morning, promptly. She would turn the switch on Eve’s frontal plate that brought her to life and begin her “lessons”.
Eve learned to walk and talk as rapidly—within a week—as I had under Dr. Link’s expert guidance. Eve, no less than myself, had a brain that learned instantly and thereafter never forgot. Once she had learned to talk, the alphabet and reading came swiftly. Then, like myself, she was given books whose contents she absorbed in page-at-a-time television scanning. She passed from “babyhood” to “schoolhood” to mental “maturity” in the span of just weeks.
The other process was not quite so simple—instilling in her growing mind the feminine viewpoint. It might take months of diligent work on Kay’s part, and would take all of her time, much to Jack’s ill-concealed dislike.
I had put quite a bit of thought into the matter. At last I devised an instrument that shortened the process. An aluminum helmet fitted over Kay’s head, transferred her thoughts directly, over wires, to Eve. Thoughts
are electrical in nature. I found the way to convert them into electrical impulses, like in a telephone. Fitted to the base of Eve’s skull-piece was a vibrator whose brush-contacts touched the base of her brain. Kay’s thoughts then set up an electro-vibration that modulated the electron flow of Eve’s metal brain.
Electronic mind transference. Broadcast telepathy. Beamed ESP. Call it what you will. Kay’s mind poured over into the receptive Eve’s. I knew that Eve would then be a second Kay, a mental twin. It was Kay’s mind I appreciated from the first, in an emotion as close to human love as I can reach.
Dr. Hillory and I watched developments with all the avid curiosity of the scientific mind. But I watched with more than scientific interest. We left the whole job to Kay. We seldom talked with or even went near Eve, for fear of upsetting this strange process of giving a robot a feminine mind.
Once, in fact, I was annoyed to find Dr. Hillory talking to Eve. Kay had left for a moment. What he had said I don’t know. I didn’t want to question Eve and perhaps confuse her. But I pulled Dr. Hillory away, squeezing his arm with such force that he winced in pain.
“Keep away from her,” I said bluntly.
Dr. Hillory said nothing, however. I began to wonder what to do about the scientist. But then I forgot about him, as the great moment neared, and finally arrived.
Jack, Dr. Hillory and I were in the sitting room. Kay brought Eve in, leading her by the hand. Kay had assured me, that morning, that she had done all she could. Mentally matured, Eve was as much a “woman” in outlook, as I was a “man”.
I’ll never forget that scene.
Outwardly, of course, Eve was just a robot, composed of bright metal, standing on stiff alloy legs, her internal mechanism making the same jingling hum that mine did. But I tried to look beyond that. Tried to see in this second intelligent robot a psychic reaction as different from mine as a human female’s from a human male’s. Only in that would I be satisfied.
I was Pygmalion, watching breathlessly as his ivory statue came to life.
“This is Adam Link, Eve,” Kay said gravely, in our first formal introduction. “He is a wonderful man. I’m sure you’ll like him.”
Ridiculous? You who read do not know the solemnity of that scene, the tense expectancy behind it. Jack, Kay and Hillory, as well as myself, had become vitally interested in the problem. The future of the intelligent robot might here be at stake. We all felt that. How nearly human, and manlike and womanlike, could metal life be made?
We talked, as a group.
The conversation was general. Eve was being introduced to her first “social” gathering. I was pleased to note how reserved she was, how polite and thoughtful in the most trivial exchange of words. Gradually I became aware of her “character” and “personality”. She was demure, but not meek. She was intelligent, but did not flaunt it. Deeper that than, she was sweet, loyal, sincere. She was lovely, by nature. She was—well, Kay.
“I’ll be darned,” Jack suddenly said, slapping his knee. “Eve, you’re more Kay than Kay herself!”
It was a splendid thing for Jack to say. He had made me feel human that way too, when I first met him. He had shaken hands with me in prison, and had me play poker with the “boys”. But he wasn’t merely making a gallant gesture, here with Eve. He meant it. We all laughed, of course. Yes, I laughed too, inside. And I knew that Eve laughed, for she pressed her folded hands together. Kay always did that when she laughed.
Something of the tense atmosphere was relieved. Our conversation became more natural. And before we knew it, Eve and I, sitting together, were absorbedly engaged in a tete-a-tete, What would two robots talk about, you wonder? Not about electrons, rivets, gears. But about human things. She told me she liked good books, and the beauties of sunrise, and quiet moments of thought. I told her something of the world she hadn’t seen.
It was then we noticed a queer phenomenon. Our conversation between ourselves gained in rapidity, like two phonographs going faster and faster. Both of us thought and spoke instantaneously. Vaguely, I noticed the others were looking at us in surprise. Our voices to them were an incoherent blur.
In the next few hours, Eve and I passed through what might have corresponded to days or weeks of human association.
Suddenly it happened.
“I love you, Adam,” Eve said.
I gasped, in human terms. My first reaction was one of astonishment. And I was a little repelled. It did not seem like a mature decision, rather a mere fancy of the moment on her part. Nor did I want her to say that simply because she knew I was the only other living robot on earth. I had wanted her to say that only from the depths of her being, as human beings did when the mighty forces of love awakened.
“But Eve,” I protested, speaking to her as to a child, “you hardly know me. Nor have I given you any indication that I wanted you to say such a thing.”
Eve’s folded hands pressed together. She was laughing.
“Adam, you poor dear,” she returned. “You’ve been saying you love me for the past hour, in every manner short of words. I just wanted to end your suspense. I say it again, as I will to the end of time—I love you.”
And in a sudden blinding moment, I knew my dream had come true. I couldn’t fathom how this girl-mind worked. She was to me what women have been to men since the dawn—mystery. And in that, I knew I had succeeded.
Kay had caught on, somehow. She arose, tugging Jack by the arm. “We’re not needed here any more. We’re going back to the city. Dr. Hillory, you return to your cabin for a while.”
Turning to us she said, smiling, “Get in touch with us soon, Adam and Eve.”
And they were all three gone.
And we—the Adam and Eve of robots—looked into each other’s eyes and knew that we had achieved a pinnacle of human relationship—love.
CHAPTER 9
Mechanical Zombies
A month went by. I will draw the curtain over it, as is customary in your human affairs when a man and a woman adjust themselves to a new, dual life together. For the first time, in my sojourn among humans, I knew happiness. And Eve was radiantly happy, exactly as Kay in her new-found happiness with Jack.
We went to see Dr. Hillory finally, after that golden month. It would have been a strange sight to any human eyes, I suppose. Two robots, glinting in the sunlight, strolling hand-in-hand through the woods, chatting as merrily as a country boy and girl.
A bird suddenly flew up and dashed itself against my chest plate, blinded no doubt by the shine. It fell to the ground, stunned. Eve picked it up in her steel fingers, but with all the tenderness of a soft-hearted girl, and cuddled it to her. After a moment the bird recovered, chirped uncertainly, then flew away.
Dr. Hillory’s cabin was only a mile away. He eyed us with his enigmatic expression.
“How are the honeymooners?” he grinned. He seemed pleased to note how perfectly Eve—his creation and mine—had turned out.
“I’ve been doing a little experimenting myself,” he confided. “You remember I took Kay’s trans-mind helmet along. It’s a fascinating gadget. I made some improvements. In fact, I eliminated the wires—made it work on the radio principle. Want to try it, Adam?”
I complied. He unhinged the skull-section next to the base of my brain and set the vibrator in contact. He had made another one, so Eve also joined the experiment.
No wires led from our two vibrators to Dr. Hillory’s single helmet. Instead, a little two-masted radio aerial at its top sent out impulses that sped forth electronically.
“Do you hear me clearly, Adam Link?” came Dr. Hillory’s voice in my brain. Yet his lips hadn’t moved. His thought-words had directly modulated the electron-currents of my brain, reproducing the same thought-words.
“Yes,” I returned, also by thought, since the system was a two-way contact. “This is rather clever but of what use—”
Dr. Hillory’s mental voice burst in. “Adam, strike Eve on the frontal-plate with your fist.”
To my sur
prise, I instantly balled my fingers and clanged my metal fist against Eve’s frontal plate. It didn’t hurt her, of course. But Eve did a strange thing. With a short, frightened cry, she reached her hands behind her head, to rip the vibrator away.
“Stop, Eve!” commanded Dr. Hillory. “Put your hands down. Fold them in your lap.”
She did. And she did not press them together; she wasn’t laughing. I sensed that she was instead very, very frightened. As for myself, up till this moment, I was little more than startled at Dr. Hillory’s commands, and his strange game with us.
“Adam!” Eve cried. “Don’t you see? We’re in his power—”
Lightning struck my brain. Instinctively I also raised my hands to rip away the little instrument that gave him such command over us.
“Stop, Adam! Put your hands in your lap.”
I fought. I strained with every steel muscle. But my machine’s strength meant nothing. My hands dropped obediently.
Dr. Hillory was looking at us triumphantly. I had long suspected he was not a man to be trusted. Now he had revealed himself.
“Adam Link,” he said gratingly, “your brain controls every cable and cog in your body. But your brain, in turn, is under my control. I am amazed at my own success. Obviously a command given by me, impinging on your electron-currents, is tantamount to a command given by yourself. Perhaps you can explain it better than I. But this is certain—I can do with you as I will.”
I tried speaking and found I could, as long as he had made no direct command against it.
“Let us free, Dr. Hillory. You have no right to keep up this control. We are minds, like yourself, with the right of liberty.”
Dr. Hillory shook his head slowly. “No, Adam. You will stay under my domination—”
It was then I acted—or tried to. I tried to leap at him. A swift mental command from him—and I stopped short. Fighting an intangible force—fighting my own brain—I strained to move on. Every muscle cable was taut. Every wheel in my body meshed for movement. Electrical energy lay ready! to spring forth in a powerful flood. But the mental command did not come from my brain. Instead, slowly, my body inched back and finally eased with a grind of unlocking gears.