by Eando Binder
Then, at a prearranged time, the barrage ceased, and the waiting land forces attacked directly. They came at the back of the fort, from the island’s interior. Tanks formed the spearhead. rumbling forward with spitting guns. Behind followed shock troops. If the stupendous shelling and bombing had opened one little crack, one means of entry, they would invade the fort and finish the battle within.
From our observation plane, we saw a strange sight. A barrage from the enemy shattered the first line of tanks. They simply blew to bits. The second wave roared up—to the same fate. The third and last line of tanks gallantly charged—and stalled. Stalled dead, as though their crews had fallen asleep.
It was the same with the shock troops. It took magnificent courage to charge, against what they had seen. But I suppose they were filled with a blind rage at this maddening enemy.
Three waves of men tried to crack the nut. Two waves went down like mown grass. The third wave fell, but limply, as though gassed or paralyzed. And then the rest of the soldiers, their morale finally broken, fled in complete rout.
I saw one more thing, before falling dusk obscured vision. Figures scurried from the fort, carrying the limp men in, as prisoners. And the undamaged tanks were driven inside, with their unconscious crews.
Three days later, after night evacuations of all natives, the ultimate weapon was tried. But when the nuclear mushrooms of hellfire cleared away, the mystery stronghold smote our eyes—u n d a m aged.
The battle was over.
You will find no record of this, I repeat. There could be no official declaration of war, since the enemy had not yet been identified. I think the sunken ships have been ascribed to sabotage for public consumption.
“The fort is absolutely impregnable,” Trent moaned. “Now the enemy can hack away at America’s defense lines at its leisure.”
He looked at me.
“This is where you come in, Adam Link. Our human methods have us stumped. Are there any methods you, as a robot, can try?”
I shook my head, and Joe Trent wept. Yes, he wept. For he knew that his country was doomed.
“Adam,” Eve said sadly. “Isn’t there anything we can do, as robots?”
There was still faint hope in Trent’s hollow eyes.
But I shook my head again.
“Trent,” I said. “Advise the government to send one tank of marines up to the fort. Have it fly a white flag. It will be a commission to ask the enemy its terms.”
“God,” Trent said hopelessly. “I guess you’re right. But suppose they ruthlessly destroy the tank—and go on, wishing complete invasion?”
“I want to go with the tank,” I said. “Eve and I, disguised as humans. If they destroy the tank—” I shrugged. “If they let us in to talk, fine. You see, I want to get inside that fort.”
Joe Trent stared.
“There’s one method left,” I finished. “Sabotage—by robots.”
It was daybreak.
One tank, a huge monster, rumbled slowly toward the back of the fort. From the conning tower waved a large white flag. There were six humans in the tank—to the casual eye. Two were the crew, one at the controls, one at the guns. Two men were high officials whom I cannot name, empowered to receive and deliver the enemy’s terms to the United States government.
The remaining two were Eve and myself. Again, as once before, I was disguised as human. Eve also. Flesh-colored plastics hid our metal bodies. Skillfully molded pseudo-features gave us the appearance of two rather stocky, poker-faced thugs. Eve was a “man” too. The disguise was a deception that might not hold up more than an hour or so. But I wanted to get within the fort. Once inside, I would see what could be done.
But there was the chance that the enemy would simply annihilate us.
“If that happens, Eve,” I murmured to her. “Farewell. Our short sojourn among humans will be over in a flash of unsung glory.”
“Goodbye, dearest,” she returned, against that eventuality.
The humans with us in the tank were grim, pale. Would the enemy receive us? Or would they blast us to atoms, so that there would be no excuse for not going ruthlessly on, invading the continent?
Our answer came with one swift sweep of the scythe of Death. The universe split open in a rending crash. The tank crumpled like a cracked walnut. A second shot exploded within, flinging the riddled bodies of six dead humans out like broken debris.
No, four dead humans.
Two of the original six flew fifty feet through the air, landing among bushes with a metallic clang. Eve and I should have been killed, too, except that after the first shot we had leaped with snap-reflexes. We were already sailing out of the split tank when the second shot hit. Its concussion merely blew us into the bushes.
To the enemy, it must have seemed we were destroyed, too. Well they knew no human beings could survive those two direct hits. They were right. No humans could. But Eve and I, with hard metal beneath our false human disguise, were no more than shaken up by the concussion and the hard landing on the ground.
Still, we lay stunned, hardly aware for a minute that we were alive. Dents were in the metal beneath our human clothing, from flying pieces of the shattered tank. But we lived.
I moved my mirror-eyes and saw Eve lying ten feet away, flat on her back. Her hand twitched as she was about to spring up, happy to be saved.
“Hsst!” I whispered. “Don’t move. Let them think we’re dead humans.”
Thus we lay still. We were in full view of the fort. If we moved the slightest, they would see it. But it was simple for us to automatically shut down our internal locomotor center. We were then “dead” from the neck down. We lay as completely inert as any corpse.
We lay that way all day, motionless.
The enemy did not come out. They let the bodies there to rot, as all the troops they had slaughtered lay rotting further back. The utter heartlessness and brutality of the enemy enraged me. They must be monsters at heart. I felt like springing up again, denouncing them in stentorian tones.
But that would be sheer folly. We must wait for night, get in the fort, and fulfill our mission. Fate had lent us a finger, so far.
Night fell at long last. When the deepest darkness had arrived signaled Eve and we cautiously arose, hiding behind bushes.
No light hung outside the fort. And no light shone from any aperture or window. They had built the fort as solidly as a halfshell of steel set down squarely on the ground. Certainly it was the queerest structure we had ever seen or heard of.
I estimated its dimensions from its bulking curve against the star-filled sky. No less than a half-mile in diameter, and 2000 feet high. Colossal engineering had been required to erect it. They must have worked on it months and months. Yet Joe Trent swore it hadn’t been there a month before.
I shrugged.
“Let’s get in, Eve,” I whispered. “I want to meet these amazing humans who have done miracles in engineering and warfare both.”
Get in, but how? Sheer blankness of wall mocked us. I strode close to the structure, in shadow, and rapped on it slightly. Metal? But it gave no ring, only a dull thud. Not wood, certainly. Some kind of plastic, harder than steel? It must be harder than tungsten-steel, to withstand all the bombarding I had seen.
“With bases like these to work from, Eve,” I said, “they can easily conquer all earth. This must be a long-range plan by dictators to rule the world. We must get in and spike this place some way. Any way.”
But we stood baffled before the adamant structure.
Fate again leaned our way.
We threw ourselves flat as a sudden glow fell around us. Had we been spied? But then I saw the light was only a reflection bouncing down from some greater light at the dome’s peak. This light shafted like a searchlight beam straight into the sky, with an intensity that drilled through scattered clouds. It must be visible for hundreds of miles.
“I see,” I told Eve. “It’s a signal beacon for their supply and reinforcement ships across the
ocean. One or more must be due to land.”
A moment later, a giant aircraft dropped from the sky, of an advanced design I had never seen before.
It dropped almost noiselessly as if the motors, too, were of a new design superbly muffled for swift, silent work. It landed like a VTOL or helicopter, not a hundred feet from where we crouched.
At the same time, amazingly, one whole section of the dome soundlessly raised, like the flap of a tent. The ship trundled in, with scarcely a whir of its mysterious motor.
Two robots trundled in after it, with scarcely a whir of their motors. It was the chance we had been waiting for. We were inside.
We scurried to a corner of the dim hangar, flattening against the wall like two motionless shadows.
I congratulated myself, but too soon.
Radiance burst through the room, as some central light clicked on. The glare revealed us plainly. Half-blinded, we noticed figures stepping from the plane. They were facing us. They could not fail to see us up against the bare wall.
Worst of all, the pitiless glare would reveal the imperfections of our human disguise. And the blasting of the tank had knocked off bits of our plastic faces, further exposing us. The enemy would know us instantly for robots, and probably destroy us as dangerous. Our mission was nipped in the bud.
Hopelessly, I looked around the hangar. The huge sliding door had shut fast, sealing us in. No other door was open. We were caught. Yes, we could run around, kill those here if necessary, but the rest would know then with whom they dealt. They would besiege us in this room. A fair-sized gun would blow us to bits with a direct hit.
Trapped. Our only hope had been to get in and seek hiding before we were seen. Now, with this light on, and no egress from the chamber, we were caught.
My eyes suddenly ceased looking for escape.
They turned back to the figures, whom I had given but a glance. A picture was transmitted from my eye-mirrors to my brain that jolted me much more than the tank explosion had.
In fact, I refused to believe what I saw. I told myself that something had gone haywire with my mechanical optic center. Perhaps a wire loose, or a short-circuit throwing everything out of balance. For what I saw just didn’t make sense. It was a hopeless distortion.
Yes, it must be that. But then, why was Eve staring rigidly, as though she had seen a ghost?
I clicked shut my eyes, looked again.
This time I knew it was no mistake.
Eve’s startled gasp came to me.
“Adam!” she said. “They aren’t—aren’t—”
“No, they aren’t,” I agreed dazedly. “They certainly aren’t!”
And they weren’t.
They weren’t human.
CHAPTER 18
Robots vs. Aliens
Imagine first a gorilla. Then an upright buffalo with horns. Then a surrealistic statue representing a hunchback on whom a mountain has fallen. Blend the three together—long powerful arms, horns at the top, hooves at the bottom, a bulging torso with the head set forward, and the whole thing nine feet tall. Ugly, brutal, repulsive, horned Goliaths.
Oh yes, it was manlike. That is, it didn’t have extra arms, or two heads, or tentacles, or any other distortion of that kind. It had two legs, two arms, a body, one head with two eyes, two ears, and one mouth.
But all the primates, and most mammals, are built in the same plan as man. Yet there is endless variety. These beings were as different from man, in a horrible fashion, as a gorilla. They walked upright and used their hands for manipulation. From there on, their similarity to man ceased. They were alien—utterly, nightmarishly alien.
Even I, a robot who was no more than a grotesque parody of man in metal, felt closer to human than these monsters were.
And suddenly the whole aspect of this event changed to something appallingly ominous.
“They aren’t human,” Eve was still whispering. “Adam, what does it mean? Where are they from?”
“I don’t know,” I returned dazedly, still stunned. “I don’t know, Eve. They’re not of earth, that’s certain.”
Eve abruptly gave a sigh.
“Well, it isn’t a foreign invader after all. Won’t they be surprised and relieved to hear that, outside?”
I think I felt like striking Eve for the thoughtless words.
“Relieved?” I grunted. “Good Lord, Eve! Don’t you get the significance of this? This isn’t a mere earthly power invading the Western Hemisphere. No, nothing as simple as that. This is a race from another planet, come to take earth from all humans.”
Eve digested that, trembling.
“What shall we do, Adam?” she breathed.
I stiffened.
Three of the aliens had stepped from the ship, turning toward us. They saw us, now. Their hands leaped to holsters, drawing out a mechanism not unlike a gun. They strode forward, covering us.
“Don’t move, Eve,” I warned. “We don’t know how powerful those guns are.”
They approached with a ponderous step on their hooved feet. Heavy and solid they must be, far heavier than a human, and far stronger. Yet they walked with a certain mincing step that indicated earth’s gravity was trifling to them. Their home-world must have a tremendous gravity, like Jupiter.
Were they from Jupiter?
I wanted to ask, but naturally they had an alien tongue.
The foremost horned giant eyed us with green-irised eyes. He towered three feet above us.
“Two more of the earthlings, eh?” he said in perfect English. “How did you get in? Don’t be so startled. We tuned in your radio, upon arrival, analyzed your language and learned it. We have need to talk with you—what do you call yourselves?—oh yes, humans.”
Humans! He took us for humans. To his inexperienced eyes, our half-messed human guise was as good as gold. He saw no difference between us and the previous captives. Humans were new to his eyes.
Instantly, I played that advantage up, giving Eve a quick glance.
I spoke, but I didn’t say—“yes, we’re humans.” That was taken for granted. In fact, it would have aroused their suspicions. I simply recounted how we had sneaked in after the plane.
“For what purpose?” the alien demanded, then answered himself. “To spy on us, of course. You hope to escape with your information. No prisoner can escape. We will keep you alive. We will have use for you, either for vivisection or mental study.”
He turned. “Mog, take them to the prison.”
I pondered in lightning thought.
I could charge them, at this moment, and take their guns away before they could shoot. I need not fear their obvious strength as a true human must. But to resist now would expose us immediately as robots. I would have little chance to find out more about them, the fort, and their plans. Better to remain prisoners for a while, and take our chances with them later.
I let my shoulders slump, for Eve’s benefit. She caught on quickly, making no move to resist. The being named Mog prodded us with his gun toward the other end of the hangar.
Again it was almost humorous. Any human, poking us with his gun and meeting unnatural hardness, would know us for robots. But Mog, having poked few humans, did not know they should all be uniformly soft.
But humor left me as we strode along.
These non-terrestrial beings represented a stupendous threat to earth. Their mighty fort, their superpowerful guns, their easy efficiency in learning English, added up to super-science.
Eve must be thinking the same as I. If only this was a foreign but earthly enemy invading America. Better that than this—invasion from space.
And outside this dome lay the world—unknowing. Unaware that soon they would be battling for existence with a foe ten times more powerful and unsympathetic than any human aggressor.
Opposite the dome-door, in the hangar, was another door that now opened. Several other aliens appeared from the interior. At their head was one who by his manner and dress must be a high official, perhaps chief of the whol
e dome.
I haven’t mentioned clothing. The aliens wore extremely light clothing, merely shorts and a belt with all else bare, as though to them earth climate was tropical. Moreover, it occurred to me that the dome was air-conditioned. I could not feel it directly like a human. But my compensating thermocouple, that allows for extreme temperatures which might tighten bearings, had swung to its low side. The temperature in the dome must be about freezing.
The chief wore a broad chest band with insignia on it, and the others saluted him by touching one hand to their horns.
Our guard, Mog, began to address the chief in their native tongue, but the chief interrupted.
“Use the English tongue, Mog, for practice. It is the earthlings’ most important language. We will have much need for it later. Now, who are these two?”
“Two humans who sneaked in after our plane to spy, Chief Thorg. I’m taking them to the prison.”
Chief Thorg gave us his attention. For a moment, at his sharp stare, I thought he had penetrated our disguise. Then he laughed—or what I took for a laugh. It was a sort of whistling wheeze.
“These little humans,” he said, “come in all assorted shapes and sizes and disfigurements. Look, this one has no nose.”
He pointed at me, and I realized with horror that somewhere my plastic “nose” had been knocked off. Was he playing with me, knowing our deception?
“Where did you lose your nose?” he queried.
“In a war,” I improvised hastily. “It was shot off.”
And the Chief swallowed that! He was already shrugging. He addressed Mog again.
“Your report?”
“We sailed through the stratosphere of this planet, over what I believe are called Europe and Asia continents. A short flight on this pygmy planet. Dropping low at times, we saw their cities and centers. Very backward there, as everywhere else on this world. There was some kind of battling going on in one place, I believe. It was hard to tell, as they fight with such puny weapons.”
“Yes, they have puny weapons indeed,” the Chief agreed. “Their clumsy attack, the other day, with iron tubs in the water, slow little aircraft, and paper-thin metal carts on land. They are apparently in the Metal Age.” His tone was derisive. ‘Stone Age’, he meant. “It seems they know nothing of plastic science and atomic hardening. Well, we will soon conquer them. Take the prisoners away, Mog.”