The chief of staff fumbled agitatedly with a pitcher and a glass. “But it . . . it thinks!”
The bright steel eyes turned quickly to him.
“All our identical units are joined by tight rhodomagnetic beams to our central relay grid in Wing IV. Such units as the one before you are only the limbs and sense organs of that mechanical brain. We can think more rapidly and effectively than men, because rhodomagnetic impulses are timeless and our relay grid is a better mechanism than the human brain. Our knowledge embraces everything that happens on many thousand planets. But you may welcome us without fear, however, because we exist only to serve mankind.”
The chief of staff swallowed hard, and overturned his glass and pitcher. Moving with a silent incredible agility, the mechanical righted them before the water had spilled.
“Quite remarkable!” The chief of staff strangled on a swallow of water, and turned red in the face, and sputtered at the dark humanoid, now still again. “But how—precisely how can you abolish war?”
That high melodious voice pealed back serenely.
“We are used” to dealing with such technological breakdowns, and we have developed extremely efficient methods. Our agents on these planets began preparing for this crisis ten years ago. Our ships from Wing IV are now approaching, and the necessary arrangements to begin our services are very simple.”
The military man seemed to wilt before the steel-eyed machine.
“Your spaceports and those of the Triplanet Powers must be opened immediately to our shipping,” it purred serenely. “We shall proceed to establish our services without delay. Our advance agents can prevent human treachery. At an agreed future date, all weapons and military installations must be surrendered to us for safe disposal.”
The chief of staff turned a choleric purple.
“Surrender?” The glass fell out of his agitated hand, and crashed on the floor. “Never!”
The mechanical stooped instantly to recover the fragments of the glass, and then stood motionless again, a black image of ultimate beneficence. The bleary eves of the old president made an uncertain circuit of the table, and his tremulous voice asked for discussion.
Claypool was deaf to the wrangling which followed. His stomach burned, and he tried to swallow the sour taste of an injudicious pickle. He sat shivering in the damp chill blast of the fan, watching that dark machine, and debating what to do. Once he caught his breath, to report the matter of White add his warning to the whole Authority. But that wouldn’t do, because security still must be maintained on Project Thunderbolt. Finally he passed a note to the president, asking for a word in private.
“Gentlemen,” that sleek machine was droning, “the Triplanet Powers will view any delay with suspicion and alarm. They may try to use their matter detonators, unless we reach a prompt agreement.”
But the president rose unsteadily, to recess the meeting. He called Claypool and the defense minister into his private office, and had them close the soundproof doors. Here was the new paint, a dismal yellow-gray. The ventilators were off, and the fume was suffocating. Claypool’s stomach burned, and sticky sweat chilled him. Gray-faced and swaying, he reported White’s warning.
“Mr. President,” he finished, “I think we ought to keep these mechanicals out—at least until we know more about them. I might suggest, sir, that we fire a demonstration shot at some uninhabited satellite, and send a warning note to the Triplanet Powers.”
The old president hesitated, fumbling his withered yellow hands irresolutely together, and Claypool knew that he longed for the competent advice of little Major Steel.
“I’m afraid of war,” he whispered anxiously. “And I trust Steel—” He gulped, and his dim eyes blinked indecisively.
“I think we should keep them out, sir, and stall for time,” Claypool insisted. “You might appoint a commission, sir, to investigate these new mechanicals on some planet where they are already established.”
“I don’t know.” The old man wrung his hands together. “Let’s send for Steel.”
“Just a moment, sir!” Claypool protested. “We must protect Project Thunderbolt—I think we’re going to need it.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
A secret message, brought in by an excited male secretary, ended that agony of indecision. The satellite stations reported a vast armada of unidentified spacecraft, approaching at tremendous velocities through Sector Xanthic. The president read it, and gasped fearfully:
“Steel said we shouldn’t wait—and that must be the Triplanet fleet!”
“I think not, sir,” Claypool protested. “With those detonators, the Triplanet Powers have no use for heavy spacecraft, and I believe Sector Xanthic lies toward Wing IV.” He felt a shiver of dread. “I believe, sir, that this is the humanoid invasion!”
“Invasion?” The old man blinked, bewilderedly. “Then I’ll have to send for Steel—”
“Wait, sir!” Claypool put in urgently. “We can still stop them, remember, with Project Thunderbolt. I suggest that you send them an ultimatum, sir. Stop them, until we know the truth.”
“But I’m afraid—” The president twisted his bloodless hands unhappily, and then peered dimly at Claypool. “If things go wrong—” he whispered sharply. “If Steel has lied to me—can your missiles reach Wing IV?”
“With certain modifications—yes, sir.”
The old man chewed his parchment lips, in the torture of doubt. His washed-out eyes went longingly to the door, but at last he gasped impulsively:
“Then we’ll keep your project. Tighten up security, and complete your modifications. Get three missiles set for Wing IV. Keep your crew alert to launch them—if things go wrong.” He gulped uneasily. “But we won’t need them. I trust Steel.”
They returned to the green table in the outer room.
“—approaching spacecraft are our own,” the little black machine was announcing serenely. “They have no hostile purpose, and they carry no weapons. They have come to bring our services to this planet, if you choose to let them land.” The Defense Authority, a few minutes later, voted to suspend the antimechanicals statutes and open the spaceports to the craft from Wing IV. Claypool hurried away, livid-faced and trembling, to look for a dose of bicarbonate.
VIII.
The efficient machine which had been Major Steel helped draft the articles of agreement, subject to a vote of the people after sixty days.
At noon, with that same alert machine beside him, the old president stood tottering before a battery of news cameras to announce the coming of the humanoids.
Claypool had found his bicarbonate, and a hotel room. He had soaked out his aching fatigue in a hot tub, and napped for two hours, and awakened with his brooding apprehension gone. He was even hungry again. He called room service, and ate while he listened to the broadcast.
He had begun to feel a vast relief. The decision was made, and the might of Project Thunderbolt still intact. White’s frantic warning began to seem remote and unreasonable now, and he felt something of Ironsmith’s bright eagerness to see the new machines.
The humanoids began landing, that same afternoon.
Returning in a staff car to his official plane, Claypool had his driver pull off the road near the spaceport, so that he could watch. One ship from Wing IV was already down. The enormous interstellar vessel dwarfed the tall familiar interplanetary liners, which now stood humbly along the edges of the field, towed hastily out of the way.
“Well, sir!” the awed driver whispered. “Ain’t it big!”
The vast concrete aprons were shattered and buckled under the weight of it, and the black hull towered so high that a tuft of cumulus was forming about its peak. Claypool watched giant valves lift open, and saw the new hordes of humanoids start marching down to the broken concrete.
Tiny against the scale of their colossal craft, they were all identical, nude and neuter, quicker and sleeker than men, graceful and perfect and tireless. The sun glittered on their yellow
brands. They spread out across the shattered apron, and kept on marching down, by the black thousands, innumerable.
Enormous hatches opened, high in that dark towering hull. Long booms thrust out. Cables lowered huge crates. Shining black mechanicals swarmed to open them, and began assembling larger machines. Something crawling like a queer saurian began scooping up the ruined apron and shaping the rubble into gray paving blocks the size of three-story buildings, which it neatly laid behind it.
Breathless with wonder, Claypool climbed out of the car. Gadgets had always fascinated him, and here were gadgets evolved and perfected beyond his maddest imagining. Here was a whole new technology in action. He began to feel the emotions of a small boy at a circus parade.
The first roving mechanicals came to the high steel fence around the spaceport, near where Claypool stood. They began cutting it down, swiftly slicing the heavy mesh with small tools that he couldn’t see distinctly, and neatly piling the sections.
Swarming about the task, they reminded him of small black insects. They worked silently, never calling to one another—for they all were parts of the same machine, and each unit knew all that any of them did. Watching their teeming efficiency, he began to feel a vague impact of terror.
For they were too many. Glinting with bronze and frosty blue, their hard black bodies were too beautiful. They were too sure, too strong, too swift. White’s warning seemed more convincing now; He was suddenly grateful for the president’s decision to save Project Thunderbolt.
Shuddering, he got quickly back in the car.
“Drive on,” he ordered huskily. “Fast!”
“Right, sir.” The driver pulled back on the road. “The world sure changes,” he commented sagely. “What won’t they think of next!”
Back at Starmont, the modifications took three days. Living mostly on coffee and antacid capsules, Claypool rebuilt three slim missiles, with new drives and new relays. Wing IV spun all the way across the colonized section of the Galaxy, but these sleekly tapered shapes of death had their own terrible geometry and Wing IV was only a few seconds farther than the nearest planet.
When the third missile was ready, Claypool went to sleep in his overalls, on a cot at the launching station. The printer bell awoke him instantly—and he saw that the time was nine, next morning. The brief message, from the defense minister, warned him to have Starmont ready for inspection by the humanoids.
He checked the three modified missiles again, and left them racked and ready. Back at the surface, he locked the elevator, closed a dummy fuse box over the controls, pushed a rug over the escape door in the floor, left his overalls on a hook, and walked out of an innocent cloakroom in the search building.
The visiting mechanical arrived on a military plane, accompanied by the inspector general of the satellite stations and his retinue. A staff car brought them up from the landing strip below the mountain.
“At your service, Dr. Claypool.” In the midst of stiff military uniforms, the slender silicone nakedness of the tiny humanoid had a curious incongruity, but that oddness was not amusing. Its air of kindly blind alertness was somehow disturbing, and Claypool started uncomfortably when it called his name.
“We have come to inspect Project Lookout.” Its voice was a mellow golden horn. “Under the agreement, we are to patrol military installations, and prevent any offensive action until the ratification election. Then we shall remove all weapons.”
“But the project isn’t a weapon,” Claypool protested hopefully. “It’s only a warning device.”
He couldn’t tell what the humanoid thought—nothing ever changed that serene expression of slightly astonished paternal benevolence. But it went blandly ahead with a painstaking inspection of the building, the instruments, the records, and the staff.
The inscrutable machine seemed to take a particular interest in the neutrino trackers. It stared blindly at the big, squat tubes, with their red-glowing webs forever sweeping space. It studied the directional plotters, and the softly clucking counters. It made him dig the specifications out of a safe, and gently demanded the name and address of every person who hail helped to build the tubes.
Claypool felt tired and annoyed. He hadn’t slept enough, and he felt an uneasy flutter in his stomach. He tried to end the interview, but the suave little humanoid persisted in its sweet-voiced inquisition.
“Thank you, sir,” it purred. “And who was the mathematician?”
“All the routine math we took to the computing section.”
“Thank you, sir. And who is employed there?”
“A young chap named Ironsmith.” Claypool’s protesting voice rose, too sharply. “But he had nothing to do with the design. He never saw the tube, or even heard about it. He’s just a mathematical hack.”
“Thank you, sir,” droned the urbane machine. “That ends the inspection—except that we must speak with Mr. Ironsmith.”
Alarm stiffened Claypool.
“But Ironsmith isn’t even connected with the project.” Desperately, he tried to smooth the apprehension from his voice. “Besides, we haven’t much more time today. I’ve already phoned my wife that we’re all coming over for cocktails and dinner, and she’ll expect us right away.”
He didn’t want the mechanical to meet Ironsmith—certainly not alone. There were too many secrets that bright young man could have guessed. But the little machine didn’t care for cocktails, and it insisted serenely on its privileges of inspection. Unwillingly he called the computing section, and Ironsmith came pedaling down to meet it at the gate.
Claypool spent an uneasy evening. His delicate stomach refused alcohol, and he felt too anxious to eat. He drank coffee to keep awake, smoked a cigar until it turned foul in his mouth, and listened to the military party’s gloomy talk of professional unemployment.
It was midnight before the little machine came back from Ironsmith. Nervously, Claypool put the departing group aboard their plane, and hurried back to the rooms where Ironsmith lived, behind the computing section. The young mathematician let him in, with a look of shocked concern. •
“What’s the matter?” Claypool blinked confusedly, and Ironsmith said, “Why so grim and haggard?”
Claypool peered sharply around the room, but he found no evidence of Ironsmith’s dealings with his mechanical guest. The few pieces of furniture were shabby and comfortable. An open book of Galactic history lay face down on a little table, beside a tobacco humidor and a bottle of good wine. Ironsmith himself, in unpressed slacks and open-collared shirt, looked guileless and friendly as the room.
“That mechanical!” Claypool muttered bleakly. “The thing was grilling me all day.”
“Oh?” Ironsmith looked surprised. “I found it very interesting.”
“What did it want with you?”
“Nothing much—just a look at the machines.”
“But it stayed all evening.” Claypool searched his open face. “What did it ask you?”
“I was asking.” Ironsmith grinned, with a boyish pleasure. “You see, that brain on Wing IV knows all the math that men have ever learned, and it’s quite a calculator. I happened to mention a tough little problem I’ve been playing around with, and we went on from there.”
“And that’s all?”
“That’s all.” Ironsmith’s gray eyes held a limpid honesty. “And I don’t see any reason for your alarm about them, or White’s hatred. Their declared purpose is the welfare of mankind, and machines don’t lie.”
Claypool wasn’t sure of that, and he felt less sure of Ironsmith. But the young man’s armor of amiable innocence seemed impregnable, and Claypool was staggering with worry and fatigue. He gave up his troubled quest.
Walking back to his house and his wife, alone in the calm desert night, Claypool felt a sudden bitter envy of Ironsmith’s carefree ease. The old cruel burden of Project Thunderbolt became intolerable. For one bleak moment, he wished that the inspecting humanoid had found the secret, and set him free.
But he stif
fened his worn shoulders, instantly. For those long, graceful missiles in the buried vault were the last defense of the planet, now that the invading humanoids were swarming everywhere. No matter how serenely benevolent the invaders seemed, he dared not put his burden down.
IX.
Claypool was recalled to the capital, next day, to attend the last sessions of the Defense Authority, as the human government prepared to wind up its business.
The ratification election was sharply contested. Labor leaders feared technological unemployment, although these flew machines promised shorter hours and more benefits than strikes had ever won. Religious organizations suspected that the knowledge and power of the humanoids would leave too little scope for any higher omnipotence, and bureaucrats were apprehensive of an unregimented society.
The humanoids, however, knew the art of politics. They opened offices in every ward and village, and their silver voices promised every man a palace. Every man would have his mechanical slaves, and luxury beyond the dreams of emperors. They promised paradise—admission free.
The election came, and only a few blind reactionaries voted to stay the trend of progress. The humanoids had come to stay. They promptly began dismantling military installations. Soldiers and spacemen went home. Claypool was delayed at the capital ten days longer, until the Defense Authority could complete its own liquidation.
“Your responsibilities are ended.” So efficient machines informed the government. A solicitous humanoid placed a pen in the trembling fingers of the old president, and he obediently wrote out his resignation. Afterwards, when they were shaking hands, his dim eyes came uneasily to Claypool’s face.
“I’m through,” he whispered faintly. “Now it’s up to you.”
Claypool met his troubled gaze, and nodded silently. He understood that Project Thunderbolt rested on his own shoulders now. Yet, filing out of the executive mansion with the others, he shared their weary relief.
The Humanoids- The Complete Tetralogy Page 12