by Roger Elwood
“Um-m-m.” He picked the little machine up, noting the yellowed incomplete page still in it, even as he slipped the carriage tension cord back on its hook. But his real attention was devoted to the cement dust ground into the splintered handle of the pick.
No man or robot could be such a complete and hopeless dope, and yet he no longer doubted. She was a robot moron! And if knowledge were evil, then surely she belonged to God! All the horror of his contemplated murder vanished, leaving his mind clean and weak before the relief that flooded him as he motioned her out.
“All right, you’re not evil. You can go.”
“And you?”
And himself? Before, as Satan, her arguments would have been plausible, and he had discounted them. But now—it had been the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil! And yet—
“Dogs!” She caught at him, dragging him to the entrance where the baying sound was louder. “They’re hunting you, Adam—dozens of them!”
He nodded, studying the distant forms of men on horseback, while his fingers busied themselves with a pencil and scrap of paper. “And they’ll be here in twenty minutes. Good or evil, they must not find what’s here. Eve, there’s a boat by the river; pull the red handle the way you want to go, hard for fast, a light pull for slow. Here's a map to my cave, and you’ll be safe there.”
Almost instantly, he was back at the excavator and in its saddle, his fingers flashing across its panel; its heavy generator bellowed gustily, and the squat, heavy machine began twisting through the narrow isles and ramming obstructions aside. Once outside, where he could use its full force without danger of backwash, ten minutes would leave only a barren hill; and the generator could be overdriven by adjustment to melt itself and the machine into useless slag.
“Adam!” She was spraddling into the saddle behind him, shouting over the roar of the thin blade of energy that was enlarging the tunnel.
“Go on, get away, Eve! You can’t stop me!”
“I don’t want to—they’re not ready for such machines as this, yet! And between us, we can rebuild everything here, anyhow. Adam?”
He grunted uneasily, unable to turn away from the needle beam. It was hard enough trying to think without her distraction, knowing that he dared not take chances and must destroy himself, while her words and the instincts within him fought against his resolution. “You talk too much!”
“And I’ll talk a lot more, until you behave sensibly! You’ll make your mind sick, trying to decide now; come up the river for six months with me. You can’t do any harm there, even if you are Satan! Then, when you’ve thought it over, Adam, you can do what you like. But not now!”
“For the last time, will you go?” He dared not think now, while he was testing his way through the flawed, cracked cement, and yet he could not quiet his mind to her words, that went on and on. “Go!”
"Not without you! Adam, my receiver isn’t defective; I knew you’d try to kill me when I rescued you. Do you think I’ll give up so easily now?”
He snapped the power to silence with a rude hand, flinging around to face her. “You knew—and still saved me? Why?”
“Because I needed you, and the world needs you. You had to live, even if you killed me.”
Then the generator roared again, knifing its way through the last few inches, and he swung out of the dome and began turning it about. As the savage bellow of full power poured out of the main orifice, he turned his head to her and nodded.
She might be the dumbest robot in creation, but she was also the sweetest. It was wonderful to be needed and wanted!
And behind him, Eve nodded to herself, blessing Simon Ames for listing psychology as a humanity. In six months, she could complete his reeducation and still have time to recite the whole of the Book he knew as a snatch of film. But not yet! Most certainly not Leviticus yet; Genesis would give her trouble enough.
It was wonderful to be needed and wanted!
Spring had come again, and Adam sat under one of the budding trees, idly feeding one of the new crop of piglets as Eve’s hands moved swiftly, finishing what were to be his clothes, carefully copied from those of Dan.
They were almost ready to go south and mingle with men in the task of leading the race back to its heritage. Already the yielding plastic he had synthesized and she had molded over them was a normal part of them, and the tiny magnetic muscles he had installed no longer needed thought to reveal their emotions in human expressions. He might have been only an uncommonly handsome man as he stood up and went over to her.
“Still hunting God?” she asked lightly, but there was no worry on her face. The metaphysical binge was long since cured.
A thoughtful smile grew on his face as he began donning the clothes. “He is still where I found Him—Something inside us that needs no hunting. No, Eve, I was wishing the other robot had survived. Even though we found no trace of his dome where your records indicated, I still feel he should be with us.”
“Perhaps he is, in spirit, since you insist robots have souls. Where’s your faith, Adam?”
But there was no mockery inside her. Souls or not, Adam’s God had been very good to them.
And far to the south, an aged figure limped over rubble to the face of a cliff. Under his hands, a cleverly concealed door swung open, and he pushed inward, closing and barring it behind him, and heading down the narrow tunnel to a rounded cavern at its end. It had been years since he had been there, but the place was still home to him as he creaked down onto a bench and began removing tattered, travel-stained clothes. Last of all, he pulled a mask and gray wig from his head, to reveal the dented and worn body of the third robot.
He sighed wearily as he glanced at the few tattered books and papers he had salvaged from the ruinous growth of stalagmites and stalactites within the chamber, and at the corroded switch the unplanned dampness had shorted seven hundred years before. And finally, his gaze rested on his greatest treasure. It was faded, even under the plastic cover, but the bitter face of Simon Ames still gazed out in recognizable form.
The third robot nodded toward it with a strange mixture of old familiarity and ever-new awe. “Over two thousand miles in my condition, Simon Ames, to check on a story I heard in one of the colonies, and months of searching for them. But I had to know. But they’re good for the world. They’ll bring all the things I couldn’t, and their thoughts are young and strong, as the race is young and strong.”
For a moment, he stared about the chamber and to the tunnel his adapted bacteria had eaten toward the outside world, resting again on the picture. Then he cut off the main generator and settled down in the darkness.
“Seven hundred years since I came out to find man extinct on the earth,” he muttered to the picture. "Four hundred since I learned enough to dare attempt his recreation, and over three hundred since the last of my super-frozen human ova grew to success. Now I’ve done my part. Man has an unbroken tradition back to your race, with no knowledge of the break. He’s strong and young and fruitful, and he has new leaders, better than I could ever be alone. I can do no more for him!”
For a moment there was only the sound of his hands sliding against metal, and then a faint sigh. “Into my hands, Simon Ames, you gave your race. Now, into Thy Hands, God of that race, if you exist as my brother believes, I commend him—and my spirit.”
Then there was a click as his hands found the switch to his generator, and final silence.
Boomerang
By Eric Frank Russell
He was a robot made humanlike with ingenuity worthy of a better cause. He was a good deal more convincing than anything exhibited in a wax museum; in fact, so far as appearances went he looked more human than did his creators.
Speidel, for example, had a balding head pointed at the top, a scraggy neck, a beak of a nose, and red-rimmed eyes. The manifest reincarnation of a vulture. But his brain was shrewd, imaginative, and of sufficient power to be called brilliant.
The co-creator was Wurmser, a fat-jowled, potbellied ind
ividual with clumsy, lumbering body and redoubtably agile mind. If Wurmser was not a genius he came pretty near to it.
Standing in the middle of the room was the robot, solid evidence of their capabilities. He resembled a youngish salesman paralyzed into complete immobility. He was nondescript, ordinary, humdrum; that was his keynote from the soles of his leather shoes to the specially treated human skin on his face and the human hair on his scalp.
In height, build, features, and attire he was utterly commonplace. A detailed description of him would apply equally well to countless men anywhere—as was intended. His name was in accord with his makeup. It was William Smith.
Propping himself against a table edge, Speidel eyed the robot and remarked, “He’ll use planes to get around fast. That’s the part I don’t like. His weight is something cruel.”
“Tell me a way to cut it still further and we’ll start all over again,” said Wurmser.
“There’s no method that won’t curtail his efficiency. You know that as well as I do.”
“I ought to,” said Wurmser a trifle wearily. “Seven years’ work and two hundred and forty models before we produce one good enough. Sometimes I dream they’re marching over my body with elephantine feet.”
"Sometimes I dream we’ve made one that has to shave. That would be a sweet touch.” He consulted a thin pocket watch. “Looks as though Kluge may be late. It isn’t like him to be tardy.”
“Here he is now,” said Wurmser.
Kluge came in, a tall, erect man with unblinking eyes, thin, severe lips, and close-cropped hair. He had a habit of clicking his heels as he turned, and seemed peculiarly stiff from the waist up.
“So!” he said in authoritative tones. “You have finished? Everything is ready?”
“Yes, Colonel-General.”
“Good!” Kluge marched four times around William Smith, coldly inspecting him from top to bottom, front and back. Smith suffered it with the blank-faced rigidity of a guard on parade.
“Well, what do you think of him?”
“I do not judge a gun by its polish or a rocket by its paint,” observed Kluge tartly. “Operational efficiency alone impresses me.”
“Then, my dear Colonel-General, you are soon to be impressed. Have you brought his papers?”
“Of course.” Kluge produced them. “Identity card, business card, passport, paper money, checkbook, fake correspondence, it’s all there. The passport is genuine: we have the ways of obtaining such a document.”
“So much the better,” said Speidel. He examined them, carefully tucked them into the pockets of the impassive, unmoving William Smith. “Have you the list of test subjects also?”
“Most assuredly.” Kluge found that too, then went on, “We have selected five men who enjoy great power. They are important. If this William Smith succeeds in striking them down, the world press will announce their passing within a day.”
Glancing over the list, Speidel commented, “Oh, I see you have taken Wurmser’s excellent advice. None of these are enemy citizens.”
“No, they are neutrals. My superiors agreed that such a tactic would enable preliminary tests to be conducted without giving the foe cause for suspicion or alarm.”
Speidel chuckled. “It is good to strike suddenly and hard. It is better to strike without warning. But it is best of all to strike in such a manner that the enemy does not know he is being hit. That is the technique of the vampire bat: to draw off the blood of a sleeper.”
“Nevertheless,” said Kluge, “I still prefer the honest soldier to the mechanical assassin.”
“Honest soldiers die like flies when victory comes hard,” put in Wurmser. “But they live when it comes easily.”
“I know. That is the basis of my approval and the chief reason why your project has the support of the High Command.” He surveyed them icy-eyed and added, “So far!”
Speidel sighed with the air of one afflicted by mulish laymen and said, “Well, Colonel-General, everything is ready. Do you require a brief explanation before we let William Smith stride into the waiting world?”
“It would be useful,” agreed Kluge. “I shall be asked difficult questions by my confreres once the die is cast.”
“All right. With Wurmser’s help, Speidel dug out a wad of blueprints, spread them across a large table. “The entire scheme has its origin in Valenski’s research on the shortwave surgical knife. Possibly you are familiar with that device. It severs flesh and seals the capillaries as it goes through.”
“I have heard of it,” admitted Kluge.
“Valenski tried to develop an adjustable focus sufficient in length, accuracy, and sensitivity to permit interior surgery without surface penetration. Such an instrument seemed the natural adjunct to a three-dimensional X-ray apparatus.”
“I understand that much.”
“After some years Valenski achieved his aim with a device that projected two converging ultra-short-wave beams. Each was innocuous in itself, but when the two were projected simultaneously and out of phase they cut at their mutual focal point, which had a diameter as fine as point two millimeters.”
“And it was a fat lot of use,” scoffed Wurmser.
“It was too cumbersome to be handled with the dexterity required by a surgeon,” Speidel confirmed. “The apparatus has been used in a few very special cases but that is all. Practice often differs from theory.”
“I am aware of that,” observed Kluge, throwing a significant glance toward William Smith.
Letting it pass, Speidel continued, “However, without ever realizing it, Valenski did develop a useful weapon. William Smith now carries it in his head, miniatured and improved. Transitors, more than anything else, enable us to reduce the gadget to fist size. The twin beams project from his' eyes and have a fixed focus of six feet,”
“That means he has to get within a couple of yards of his victim?” inquired Kluge, looking doubtful.
"And hold the said victim’s attention for not less than twenty seconds,” said Speidel. “How can he do those things? Firstly, he bears faked but imposing letters of introduction that should enable him to gain personal interviews if and when he cannot get near enough any other way. Secondly, he is conditioned to grip attention.”
“How? By hypnosis or something?”
“No, nothing like that. There is only one thing guaranteed to occupy the full mind of any man: namely, a threat or implied threat to that which he values most.” Speidel smiled and somehow looked more vulture-like than ever. “The intended victims all love power. To them, power is more precious than jewels. Therefore William Smith will discuss their power, voice menace to it, and thus retain their attention sufficiently long to aim at the target and hit it dead center.”
“And then?”
“His eyes will project for the minimum time necessary to achieve results. The victim will see nothing, feel nothing, suspect nothing. William Smith will depart—or be thrown out. Before long a severed vessel in the victim’s cranium will cause the inevitable end; he will collapse and expire of cerebral hemorrhage. A natural and commonplace cause, as any village doctor can testify. A death completely devoid of grounds for suspecting political assassination.”
“It is unmilitary,” complained Kluge. “I am compelled to realize that methods change with changing times, also that effectiveness is the deciding factor. Nevertheless I dislike such tactics.”
“Everyone detests new modes of warfare—especially when the other fellow uses them first,” countered Speidel. “This idea is the sneakiest way of hitting a foe dreamed up to date. Its sneakiness is not a fault; it’s a prime virtue. It is its chief charm.”
“Why?”
“Because every other new weapon so far produced cannot be used without advertising its own existence. With what result? Sooner or later the enemy learns its basic principles, copies it, improves on it, and uses it against us.” He gestured toward the silent figure still posing like a dummy in a store window. “This is the first device the enemy canno
t seek and reproduce. He cannot do so simply because he will remain in blissful ignorance of it.”
“That is the very aspect of which I am most doubtful,” Kluge admitted. “So many unforeseeable things can happen to bring him to the attention of curious officialdom. A minor crime committed in ignorance, an infringement of some petty law, or even the operation of sheer coincidence.”
“What do you mean?”
“For example, suppose he should happen to correspond more or less with the description of a badly wanted criminal. Somebody notices the resemblance, tells the police. They arrest him on suspicion, try to take his fingerprints.”
“He has fingerprints. Genuine ones taken from a dead man without a record. He can prove who he is by his papers. He can talk his way out of it.”
“Well, then, what if he becomes involved in something that makes the police want to hold him two or three days? He cannot eat, cannot drink. He refuses to undress. He won’t permit medical examination. See what I mean?”
Taking in a deep breath, Speidel said, “Look, Colonel-General, nothing like that can possibly occur. Wurmser and I have most carefully covered every possible eventuality. William Smith can never be captured, disassembled, and copied.”
“Why can’t he?”
“If questioned, he has all the answers. If anyone tries to take him into custody or restrain his freedom in any way, he will attempt to escape. And he cannot be stopped by bullets.”
“What if he cannot escape?”
“If circumstances create the dire need to escape when he cannot do so, then it means he is under orders to achieve the impossible. To his mind, that would be an unsolvable problem.” Moving across to William Smith, he unfastened the robot’s vest, opened his shirt, revealed a small red stud set in the heavy chest. “That is his answer to all unsolvable problems. Meeting one and finding no way out, he strikes that button.”
“And—?”