by Eando Binder
It was a grand fight. A soul-satisfying fight. With each blow, I hissed the name of one of the prisoners who had gone to the dissection room. With each death, I counted one earth plane pilot paid for.
CHAPTER 21
Adam Link, Citizen
Giants they were, hulking monsters of incredible strength. But they had no chance. Their blows against us served only to break their arms. They kicked viciously with their hooves, and howled in pain as the ankle-bone went numb or snapped. They stooped and butted with their short, wicked horns, and succeeded only in stunning their brains.
In turn, Eve and I butted with our metal skulls, often with enough force to cave in a chest with the muffled sound of cracking ribs.
Eve and I were at last exerting our full mechanical fury, against which no biological being could stand unless it might be a dinosaur. The Sirians were gigantic and strong, yes, alongside humans. But to us they were overgrown rag dummies.
It was a glorious fight. The hulking behemoths went down steadily.
“Come on. you Sirian thugs,” I yelled. “Meet Adam Link, the robot. My wife. Eve. Pleased to kill you.”
The last two tried to flee, shrieking, from the two berserk metal whirlwinds. I overtook one. Eve caught the other. We swung them around our heads, by their heels, banging them together till they were bloody, broken shreds. We were laughing, shrieking in joy.
I cannot explain this orgy, except that all our pent-up hatred and rage and revulsion against the Sirians had come to a head. It was like the overcharged hatred of a human stamping again and again on a snake long after it is dead.
Our joyful shrieking stopped, as a sound penetrated our ears. It was a hissing bolt-blast, following by a tinkling crash.
“We forgot Mog,” Eve yelled. “He’s at the engine, smashing the controls.”
I was already leaping to the front of the ship, where Mog was aiming his second blast among the drive-apparatus. I jerked the gun away, so that the blast sped harmlessly against the hull. Mog whirled with a snarl of rage and fear.
“Twice before we battled, Mog,” I said, “without coming to a decision. Now—”
It was brief. I grabbed his nine-foot body as if he were a child. I bent him across my chest, as once he had brutally bent I a human across his. I slowly pulled as he screamed in pain. The scream clipped off as a sharp snap told of his spine breaking like a twig. I tossed the corpse aside.
I looked around. All the Sirians down here were dead.
Except one.
“Look,” Eve pointed. “Thorg recovered.”
I had not killed Thorg, only dealt him a blow. He had crawled to the door and now dashed through it, escaping.
“Let him go,” I said. “Let him tell his men of the two metal demons who will defeat them. And we will, now that we have this ship. We know how to run it now—by thought control.”
Eve and I clasped hands happily. It was the last factor in the plan that had slowly shaped in my mind during the spying.
“Good job you did, Eve,” I commended her sincerely. “Acting the part so superbly of turning against the human race, for the benefit of the Sirians. You even had me fooled for a while.”
“And you had me worried,” Eve returned, sighing in relief. “For a while I thought you might actually mean it. Especially when you took poor Captain Taylor and . . . but you had to do it.”
I laughed.
“Taylor isn’t dead,” I said. “I didn’t strangle him. I slipped a finger over a vertebra below the back of his neck and pressed hard. You know the delicate nerve there. Pressed hard, it renders the victim unconscious. But not dead. Taylor’s alive.”
“Adam, you darling,” Eve said. “Our hands are clean after all. Now—”
She was interrupted by the sound of clattering hooves down the corridor, approaching this underground hangar.
“No time to lose,” I said hurriedly. “All we have to do now is start this ship’s engine and—”
I slipped the thought-helmet over my head.
“Come to life—start—operate,” I commanded mentally in a dozen different ways.
There was no reaction from the mighty engine. I tried vainly for another minute. At the anti-aircraft guns, the merest thought of the alien gunners had swung them, aimed them, fired them. What more was needed here?
Eve clutched my arm, pointing.
“Mog fired one shot at the controls. Look there—he damaged it.”
I looked. A dozen wires had been blasted out of what seemed a vital unit of the complex mechanism.
Ruined! The ship’s drive mechanism was ruined, and with it my great plan. We had only killed off twenty aliens. There were 980 of them left. A formidable force. I could not storm up and wade into them all. Their combined hand-weapon bolts would eventually damage me, defeat me.
Eve and I might kill a hundred or two. Hundreds would be left. And the dome would be intact. Ship Two would land tonight, with reinforcements. In one crushing moment, all my carefully planned schemes had smashed.
“I’ve failed, Eve,” l groaned. “They’ll win, now. Our only hope was getting this ship into operation.”
“Can you repair it?” Eve suggested. “I’ll try to hold off any attack for a while—”
“Repair it?” I said hollowly. “Repair an engine I never saw or heard of before? I might—if I had enough time. But they won’t give us time.”
Hopelessly, we prepared to battle to the end. We heard the thunder of hooves, like a herd of buffalo, and they appeared at the far end of the hangar.
I ran forward and picked up Mog s bolt-gun. I slipped three more from dead aliens and handed two to Eve. We stood shoulder to shoulder and fired. We blazed away, like two metal gunmen, with a pair of guns each, in a battle to the finish.
The first few Sirians that darted from the corridor went down with smoking holes blasted in their bodies by the lightning we hurled. It was no trick to us to handle the guns, and our aim was mechanically without error. Then they came thundering out in a body, at least a hundred of them, spreading in a semi-circle in the large space.
The lightning bolts lanced back and forth.
Eve and I, with our precise aim, picked them off like clay pigeons. But the last twenty surged near enough to blast us with a fusillade of shots. Some of our rivets cracked away. A frontal plate or two loosened. If our inner vitals were exposed, one shot within would short-circuit us and burn out our brains.
We divined Thorg’s desperate plan.
Knowing he was up against formidable metal beings who acted fast, he would destroy us fast. At any cost. Even if it took all his men, he would finish us. Better for Ship Two to arrive at a dome empty of Sirians and robots alike, rather than arrive at a dome held by robots.
A wave of another hundred Sirians spilled out next.
Again Eve and I shot them down with our unerring swiftness. But again, appallingly, rivets flew loose and metal slowly weakened. One shot had clipped away one of my neckbolts, so that a flange dropped away. The next electrical bolt in there would bore into my neck-cables, run up the wires, and blast my brain.
“The next attack,” I told Eve somberly, “will get us. Earth is doomed after all.”
“If only Captain Taylor and his men had weapons and could attack from the rear,” Eve said hopelessly.
I started.
“Eve! The weapons are there—on the downed Sirians. Hurry, let’s gather them before the next attack.”
We ran among the dead and piled up a hundred bolt-guns. Enough to arm all the prisoners.
“Get these to the men,” I said to Eve. “Have them attack from the rear. Keep the Sirians occupied. Give me one hour if you can. One hour to repair that engine. One hour.”
Our plan was desperate, but simple.
When the next wave of aliens boiled out, two hundred of them this time, they withered before the thunder of an earth tank’s gun. We had remembered the tank stored here. Eve was inside, with the bolt-weapons.
Guns spitting, she
rumbled the tank forward, plowing through their ranks. The tank darted into the clear corridor back of them, knocking down the last few Sirians in the way. Then it churned madly down the hall toward the prison.
“Good luck, Eve,” I shouted.
“Goodbye, Adam,” her voice drifted back, above the rumble of the engine. “If we never meet.”
Yes, goodbye it might be, I swung on the aliens with a snarl. They had forced me to separate from my mate. It always drove me berserk, when Eve was in danger. I would kill—kill—kill—
But only twenty stayed to duel with me. The remaining force, at an order, gave chase to Eve. They realized the threat she would be, at their backs.
Two guns blazing, I shot down fifteen of the twenty. Then my guns were empty. I did not waste time picking up fresh guns from among the dead. I waded into the last five, defying their bolts like a metal madman. None had made a vital shot.
I picked up one and flung him to the floor as pulp. The second I bowled over and stamped on. I tore the head of the third from its trunk. I punched the fourth so hard my alloy fist sank half-way into his chest. The fifth and last, I flung over my head against the wall, with a wet thud.
I was free from attack, for the time being.
I listened at the door. Faintly, I heard the joyous shouts of Taylor’s men, drifting down from the halls above. Eve had reached them, killed the guard, yanked open the bars, and distributed the weapons. Already their hissing barks sounded. And the tank’s rumble resumed, as a spearhead formed behind it.
We had a rear-attack fighting force now.
I calculated the possibilities. Less than a hundred humans against 600 aliens. The Sirians would win, of course. The tank night confound them for a while, but they would barricade it off in some corridor and force the charging earthmen to fight land-to-hand. In the narrow hallway, with bolts sizzling thickly, Eve too would be doomed . . .
But it would give me time now to look at the engine. Repair t, if possible.
I ran back, and looked the damage over.
I must make another fantastic statement here. I had never seen a spaceship before, or even dreamed of one. I knew absolutely nothing of its principle or intricate design, fashioned of alien minds.
Yet in one hour I knew its essential features.
The armed and freed earthmen were putting up a heroic battle. Thorg knew he had to wipe out this armed menace in his midst, before he could come after me.
I could hear the sounds of battle. The triumphant, joyful shouts of the earthmen, as at last they struck back at the aliens. Captain Taylor’s voice was loudest of all, deploying his men n the corridors, sniping, charging, withdrawing, doling out his men’s lives for the largest possible price. And for the longest slice of precious time. The tank’s rumble sounded periodically, as it was used to spearhead a sortie, or to cover a strategic retreat.
Humans and robots, united again, were making history under the dome.
One hour they gave me.
One hour in which I examined 5000 engine parts, wires, condensers, tubes, spark-chambers, computerized parts, and electronic gadgetry. And then I knew. Knew that the dozen wires Mog’s one vital shot had destroyed should be replaced and hooked up in such and such a manner. I took wire from a bolt-gun’s coil. I made the last connection. I slipped the thought-helmet over my skull.
Would it work? Or would all those humans go down for nothing?
Even as I adjusted the helmet with feverish haste, the battle sounds died. The shouts of men trailed to dying echoes. They had spilled their blood, to the last man, buying an hour with their lives.
And Eve? The tank’s rumble was absent. It had been wrecked. Had a bolt finally ripped into Eve’s battered metal body and blasted within? No sound from her. She was gone, too.
Savagely, I commanded the engine to come to life. Obediently, a hum rose back of the panels, as mighty forces came to life and awaited their metal Aladdin’s next wish. I began to give the mental order.
“Adam! Adam!”
It was Eve’s voice, far down the corridor. Her metal feet pounded, louder and louder. Hooves pounded after her. The last 500 of the Sirians pursued her, to finish the battle underground where it had started.
Eve’s flying metal form burst from the corridor. Sirians followed, blazing away. A hail of lightning sparked against her alloy plates. Eve stumbled half-way to the ship. She was badly hurt. A lightning-bolt spanged against the back of her skull, where metal had oxidized away under heat.
Eve fell with a crash and lay still. I was there in two huge bounds. I swept up her limp form. It was silent, lifeless. She had paid the price, too, along with Taylor and his men.
I would not wish to describe my feelings of that moment. Earth was saved, but for me the universe had turned dark.
I ran back to the ship’s controls.
“Rocket tubes fire,” I commanded the engine. “Rear and front together, at equal rate.”
Instantaneously, livid flame shot from the multitude of drive tubes. With equal forces from back and front, the ship itself did not move. But all the hangar was filled with a dense, choking, poisonous exhaust gas. This had been my plan.
I turned to watch. With savage satisfaction, I saw all the charging Sirians stop, stumble, and claw at their throats. By the dozens they dropped, then hundreds, as the clouds of gas billowed over them. They had lungs. The lungs filled with vapors that choked out their lives. The 500 aliens died in their tracks.
Chief Thorg was among them. I watched him curl to the ground, double up, and die in agony. I gazed down at Eve’s dead form. Thorg’s death soothed, perhaps by a millionth par. the blind agony within me.
I let the rockets blast out for fifteen minutes, filling the whole dome with its poisonous vapors. No being could be alive now. No last lurking Sirian who might be at some watch station.
Only Adam Link was alive now, without lungs to be seared.
I commanded the engine to stop. Then I sat before Eve, dead quiet.
Hours later I arose. It was night now. Ship Two was due to arrive. If my metal face could have showed it, I was grinning within. A deadly, ghastly grin.
The beacon light shone that night, guiding to earth the starship that had plummeted across the gulf of space from Sirius.
The mighty craft lowered from the clouds, rockets burning. It dipped in salute. Within were 1000 yelling, cheering, rejoicing Sirians, eager to step out on the planet they were to conquer.
I was at a thought-controlled anti-aircraft gun. The mighty ship was limned clearly by searchlight.
“Fire—fire—fire—fire!”
My gunsight eyes moved like a raking machine-gun along the length of the ship. The gun thumped in unison, blowing gaping holes in the craft. It broke in gyrating shreds. Homed figures spilled out and fell to the dome.
When the rain of debris had ceased, all was quiet again. Ship Two had arrived.
But no more would.
With my shoulder against one support of the giant long-range radio, I shoved. The framework toppled, bringing the entire machine down with a crash. I stamped all its parts to bits.
Then I looked up, out of the slide-roof, singling Sirius out of the starry hosts. I laughed. Two robots had dealt that mighty sun a staggering blow.
No, one robot.
I went below, again. I picked up Eve’s dead form, and held it in my arms. Then I gave commands to the engine.
With a powerful bellow, the rear rockets burst forth. The gigantic craft rammed forward, like a caged lion. Its sharp prow plowed through thin partitions as through cheese.
“Faster! Faster!” I commanded.
Like a great battering ram, the ship speared for the central power-room of the dome. The nose crunched against the protecting walls, broke them down. The subatomic-power generator they had used hummed busily in the center, still automatically gushing untold energy into the storage coils.
The ship plowed into the whole unit, cracking screens. Unleashed energy leaped forth.
&n
bsp; “We will be together, Eve,” I said, “in death.”
The cosmos blew up. A million megawatts of raging fury expended itself in one titanic explosion.
The mind of Adam Link blinked out. I wished it so, following Eve into the unknowing state.
But the mind of Adam Link blinked into being again. I was alive.
“Eve, how can this be?” I stammered.
We were sitting up, staring around. We were at the edge of a broken cliff. Ocean-waves were dashing against the new cliff shore. The explosion had not only blown the dome to atoms, but it had severed the entire headland from its matrix. No sign remained of the dome’s former site. It was all washed over by lapping, swirling waters.
And we were alive, at the edge of the schism.
One thing had survived with us, from the dome. The blunt prow of the spaceship. It had been blown up and away, integrally, with two unconscious metal forms flattening against it. We had landed, with freakish gentleness, in soft sand.
“The prow,” Eve said, “was probably designed to withstand head-on collision with any but the largest meteors in space. It held up and saved us.”
I nodded—and then suddenly stared at Eve, aghast.
“You’re dead,” I gasped stupidly. “Eve, you’re dead—”
“Seemed dead, perhaps,” Eve corrected. “The bolt singed my brain, knocking me unconscious. Evidently that jar jolted me back to my senses.”
I arose, then, hammering my metal fists against my metal chest. Like a metal Tarzan, I gave a bellow of pure triumph. I shook my fist up at the star Sirius.
“Set you back on your heels, didn’t I?” I shouted. “In all the universe, no creatures can stand up against Adam Link—”
My legs crumpled suddenly. The chest-beating had loosened a wire within, short-circuiting my locomotor center. I collapsed and sprawled on the ground, helpless.
“Serves you right,” Eve chided, as she took off my chest-plate and worked over me. “You bragging fool. It was more luck than brains.”
Eve was right. But when a grey ship nosed over the horizon, at dawn, I ran to shore eagerly to meet its launch.
Joe Trent, United States secret service agent, stepped to shore, with the battleship’s captain and fleet-commander.