by Jerry
Senthree started to agree, a bit of a smile coming onto his face. It looked as if instinct were already in operation.
But a strange voice cut him off. “Hey, you robots, when do we eat around here?”
They could talk! It must have been the male. And if it wasn’t the polite thanks and gratitude Senthree had expected, that didn’t matter. There had been all kinds of Men in the books, and some were polite while others were crude. Perhaps forced education from the tapes without fuller social experience was responsible for that. But it would all adjust in time.
He started to turn back to Ceofor, but the younger robot was no longer there, and the screen looked out on a blank wall. Senthree could hear the loud voice crying out again, rough and harsh, and there was a shrill, whining sound that might be the female. The two voices blended with the vague mutter of robot voices until he could not make out the words.
He wasted no time in trying. He was already rushing down to the street and heading toward the labs. Instinct—the male had already shown instinct, and the female had responded. They would have to be slow with the couple at first, of course—but the whole answer to the robot problems lay at hand. It would only take a little time and patience now. Let Arpeten sneer, and let the world dote on the Arcturus explorers. Today, biochemistry had been, crowned king with the magic of intelligence combined with instinct as its power.
Ceofor came out of the lab at a run with another robot behind him. The young robot looked dazed, and there was another emotion Senthree could not place. The older biochemist nodded, and the younger one waved quickly. “Can’t stop now. They’re hungry.” He was gone at full speed.
Senthree realized suddenly that no adequate supply of fruit and vegetables had been provided, and he hadn’t even known how often Man had to eat. Or exactly what. Luckily, Ceofor was taking care of that.
He went down the hall, hearing a tumult of voices, with robots apparently spread about on various kinds of hasty business. The main lab where the couple was seemed quiet. Senthree hesitated at the door, wondering how to address them. There must be no questioning now. Today he would not force himself on them, nor expect them to understand his purposes. He must welcome them and make them feel at ease in this world, so strange to them with their prehistoric tape education. It would be hard at first to adjust to a world of only robots, with no other Man people. The matter of instinct that had taken so long could wait a few days more.
The door dilated in front of him and he stepped into the lab, his eyes turning to the low table where they sat. They looked healthy, and there was no sign of misery or uncertainty that he could see, though he could not be sure of that until he knew them better. He could not even be sure it was a scowl on the male’s face as the Man turned and looked at him.
“Another one, eh? Okay, come up here. What you want?”
Then Senthree no longer wondered how to address the Man. He bowed low as he approached them, and instinct made his voice soft and apologetic as he answered.
“Nothing, Master. Only to serve you.”
He waited expectantly.
THE END
MORPHEUS IN HADES!
E. Bruce Yaches
I WAS STRUCK, with the emptiness of the streets and roller-walks. It was early evening and the syntho-dome overhead shimmered and winked. A premonition seemed to be drawing at my thoughts, yet there was no reason for it. I sensed my discontent but I couldn’t voice it or tag it. The Machine, I reflected, had made life perfect and none of us had to fear the travails of the radiation-ruined world outside the syntho-dome. True, there seemed to be no drive to life, but the pleasures of narcosis and the Narco-rooms, filled with their extravagant dreams, made up for this lack of need to do things. Everyone took to the Narco-rooms gratefully. And yet I knew it was not right.
I strolled leisurely and aimlessly down a side street away from the Narcorroom centers. I knew I should not, because my record required more narcosis, more dreaming, but that seemed so aimless, so futile, that even a walk was a directed action. If this defection were reported to the Central of the Machine, I knew I’d be in trouble. The Watchers would whisk me away in a hurry. And in spite of these fears, I walked on.
“There she is!” I heard the shout, and two Watchers, parasticks in their hands, dashed from a doorway just in front of me and started in pursuit of someone whose shadowy outline I could see fleeing farther down, the street. It seemed to disappear into a building and I could hear the Watchers debating what to do as they paused. They turned and their eyes fell on me. “You,” one shouted, “Come here!” Ordinarily I would have obeyed them without question, but seemingly without my conscious volition, a wave of hatred swept over me, and instead of walking toward them, I flung open the door of. the building and dashed in. Surprised at my rash action I stared into the gloomy dim-lit murkiness and I could see I was in the lobby of an apartment of some kind. Suddenly realization of my defiance came to me. I could hear the Watchers outside hammering on the door.
I ran down the corridor toward the rear of the building. Strangely, a delicious sense of power pervaded me, countering my first overwhelming fear.
The refugee must have, entered this same building farther down the. street and I hoped that I’d encounter her. So I turned, left and ran down that rectangular corridor. It would be only a matter of minutes before the Watchers gained the building.
I saw a stairwell and dashed down it. It was utterly dark and I almost stumbled and fell when I tripped. My hands shot out to balance me and I clutched something. It was soft and warm and it let out a frightened cry. “Oh!”
I was clutching in my arms the girl the Watchers had been chasing moments ago. She writhed and struggled to break away. I held her firmly.
“Don’t,” I said, “I’m being chased too. I’m running from the Watchers too.” In that moment I knew that I’d never submit to another Narco-session. She relaxed and I loosened my arms. We walked side by side along the tubular passageway at the bottom of the stairwell. In the light of dim bulbs I could see she was beautiful. There was fright in her eyes—but determination too.
“My name’s Alain,” she said as we walked rapidly. a m going, outside the syntho-dome. I don’t care what’s out there. I can’t stand the Narcosis. I know others have escaped—why can’t I?”
“I’ve heard of passageways outside,” I said, “but how will we find them? I won’t stay in this rabbit warren any longer.”
“They say passageways like this lead to sewers and service and conduit ways which go outside the Syntho-dome. Maybe if we l follow v this far. enough, there will be a I way out. No matter what happens I’m going too.”
There was such fervor and courage in her voice that I couldn’t help but admire her. “We’ll find a way together,” I said, and I brought myself nearer her side. Her hand crept into mine and we walked rapidly down, the unknown corridor to our fate.
“Yes,” she agreed and there was the shade of a smile on her face, “we’ll find a way together. . . .”
THE CAIN I hadn’t been spaceborne for more than an hour when I ran into the girl. I remembered that I hadn’t locked my cabin door and it isn’t a good idea for an incognito patrolman to leave, his belongings where any steward or passenger can wander in and examine them. I dashed down the short corridor to the right-angled axial junction when I gave an “oof!” and the oncoming girl bounced off me into a heap.
“Pardon me,” I said stupidly, “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” I helped the girl to her feet and I could see she was a beauty. This was my chance to be charming—I thought. She’d make a nice dinner companion, although you wouldn’t get much eating dories. I opened my mouth to start talking—and-it stayed open like a gasping fish out of water.
“Fool!”, she said viciously, and for a moment I’d have sworn there was pure hate in her eyes. Before I could recover my aplomb she turned and walked quickly away. I shrugged and silently consoled myself that I was lucky at that. She was really nasty. I had an uneasy feeling tha
t there was something wrong with that girl, though. Long space trips aren’t so exciting that you can afford to ignore your fellow passengers. I lit a cigarette and went back to my cabin.
For the next few days I watched for the girl. I found her name was Dell Armand but there were no other vital statistics available. She didn’t appear at mess at all. Then I saw her a second time.
She was walking rapidly toward her cabin and there was a twisted look of pain on her face. Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead, and it was apparent she was in agony. I noticed also that she walked with a limp. As I drew abreast of her I asked: “Are you well? Can I help you?”
She shook her head mutely but with a savage abruptness that made me wonder and she hurried on. Then I noticed something else. In the brief glimpse I’d gotten of her eyes I noticed—I thought—a yellowish glint in the pupils. And that meant everything to me. That girl was a ziller or my name wasn’t Smith! I should know, too, because I’d just come off the Martian patrol where we spent nine tenths of our time tracking down the damned zillers and their suppliers. Zilleen is the System’s most savage and insidious drug! This girl was either a peddler or smuggler and certainly a user.
I moved fast then.
I waited until the girl left her cabin again. It was the work of a minute to force the lock. I searched the loom from top to bottom, but there wasn’t a trace of zilleen. The room, was clean. Yet I knew something was wrong.
I decided to brazen it out. There was a large clothes rack in one corner of the room. I hid myself behind it, selected a position where I could see the room clearly, and waited. I had a long wait, but finally the girl came into the room. There was that same look of pain on her face that I’d seen before. Ignoring everything, she fumbled into a box in the handbag she was carrying and withdrew, a long hypodermic needle. I watched, puzzled. Zilleen isn’t injected—ordinarily it’s taken by mouth. She lifted her skirt, exposing an attractive length of thigh. Without hesitation, she gritted her teeth and plunged the needle into her bared skin. In a moment the look of pain left her face.
“And what was the idea of that? Zillers don’t use needles!”
She whirled and faced me. A little pistol appeared, as if by magic, in her hand and she fired, at the same time dashing for the door. The-shot caught me in the arm, but I was after her in a flash. She moved fast and disappeared down the corridor.
She was-gone. The red light on the lifeboat locker was glowing and I couldn’t force the door against atmospheric pressure.
“She had taken a lifeboat and was gone, but she couldn’t get far.
I went to Control and described the incident. The ship’s officers were already aware that a boat had taken off. They immediately sent out pulse messages and I knew the girl would be picked up in a matter of hours. Certainly her confederates would be waiting in space. She was attempting-to get to Earth.
Patrol did pick her up and I learned that what I had suspected when she used the hypo was true. It was loaded with novocaine. She was carrying a small tantalum cylinder embedded in her thigh, using a local anesthetic to cut the pain. The cylinder was loaded with zilleen concentrate!
THEY WILL DESTROY
Bryce Walton
“Don’t you see, you idiots? We’re in section 80-epicenter-57. That little light right there happens to be Sol!” . . . But they shouldn’t have been back home; they should have been in M-32 in Andromeda!
1
CONRAD’S stirring consciousness told him that the fantastic journey had ended. The automatic equipments beside their beds were geared to waken them as they approached that far, far constellation. M-32 in Andromeda.
Andromeda! He didn’t feel the injectors punching new life into his limbs; he didn’t feel anything except growing fear. He heard the voiceless sussuration of the ship as it thrust itself on through the cold and lifeless night. Something was horribly wrong!
While relays and photoelectric circuits assured his steady rise from the still dust of suspended animation, Conrad’s wide-set brown eyes stared wildly at the chronometer. His big body trembled in his bed.
Surely the chronometer was wrong. But the ship was no stronger than any one of its many intricate parts, and everything else was working properly. Suspended animation, the only possible way a human could manage the vast journey, was scheduled to be broken as the ship reached one point five light years distance from the fringe of the star system of M-32 in Andromeda. At that instant of awaking, allowing for errors involving such great sweeps of space-time, the chronometer should register approximately three hundred years.
It didn’t, though. The dial pointed an unshaking finger at—six hundred years.
Six hundred years, four months, twenty-two days, five hours, eighteen minutes, and—
But what did the seconds matter? The four of them had slept on in their suspended animation at least twice as long as they were scheduled to. Nine hundred thousand light years too long.
Surrounded by that infinite darkness expanding forever beyond the thin shell of the spaceship, Conrad was suddenly bathed in cold sweat. Blinking, he peered across the small sleeping cubicle at the other three. None of their shadowy bodies moved in the dim autoluminescence. His eyes passed over the big clumsy body of Karl Koehler the astrophysicist and galacticist; over the slim delicate body of Frank Hudson, astrogator and electroengineer. He looked at his wife.
Tears stung his eyes as he looked at Kaye. She was so beautiful with her head pillowed in a deep cushion of violet-black hair. And she was alive; the dials showed their vague spark of life. That was the almost-frightening reality—all alive after so long.
Alive, and lost, somewhere, somehow—
Trembling impatiently to find out what had happened, and with fear of finding out, Conrad waited. Other injectors kept his nerves anesthetized against the intense pain of returning sensation.
Finally, after almost two hours, he was able to get up and move about. The others should be awaking too; something else was wrong. Hurriedly he set their awakening equipment to working, then ran to the forward control chamber, groping his way fearfully through the strangely alienfeeling cylindrical body of the hundred-metre spaceship.
But he didn’t open the door. Not just then. No use going in until the others were conscious. He wouldn’t understand the full significance of the astrocharts without Koehler. Nor could he know whether or not ‘Kilroy’ the automatic pilot, had gotten out of commission without Hudson.
He wandered back to the sleeping cubicle. What colossal blind faith they had put in the ship, especially in ‘Kilroy.’ They had trusted completely in the ability of that mass of free electrons, magnetic fields in a hard vacuum; and it had lost them unmercifully in a timeless immensity somewhere at least 90,000 light beyond M-32 in Andromeda.
Nothing could be done toward finding what had happened, or easing their circumstance except as a group. The others were specialists; he the ‘coordinator’, a graduate of the Synthesis Academy. He was a non-specialist acting as informal ‘Captain’ of the experimental flight, man’s first beyond his own galaxy in which had been found only faint hints of intelligent life. His job was to correlate the work of the specialists.
Conrad slid nervously back along the bulkhead. Through the appalling thinness between him and that black abyss beyond the ship he could feel the infinite whispering night rushing, rushing—
The others were beginning to stir painfully. While he waited, he relieved some of the tension by opening and eating a can of concentrates; but after that H felt no better.
He sat there broodingly, his head in moist hands. There was something in his brain, something psychosomatic that ached because it shouldn’t be there and wanted to get out. The ache symbolized something else, suppressed, he was sure; it was a hidden fear—perhaps something deeper than fear—imprisoned there.
LATER THEY sat looking at each other, aware of the mutual fear growing among them. Kaye’s hand rested in his. Her peculiarly opaque eyes studied all of the others with the d
iscerning eyes of psychiatry. The giant Koehler stretched, his big jaws yawning widely. “Well, Hudson, you ready?”
Koehler’s dislike for Hudson was ill-concealed. Conrad understood that, though he had tried to control his own distaste for Hudson’s particular psychological type. Cynical, egomaniacal—incipient paranoia, Kaye had said. His motivation for volunteering for this flight was a symptom; he had said he wanted to be the pioneer of man’s eventual conquest of the Universe. Unpleasant obsession, Conrad had thought. Yet many men at the time they had left earth had probably had somewhat similar ideas.
But those men were gone now, dead a long time. What men moved now in their patterns? What ideas prevailed now? Little chance of their ever finding out.
Hudson was smiling thinly. “Sure. Let’s take a look at ‘Kilroy.’ Not that it makes any difference now; we’re through. A delicate mechanism like this either works right, or very, very wrongly. And it caught us asleep. But we’re only the first; not important. Men are tired of a barren Utopia. We need a Universe to conquer, to bend to our will. There’ll be plenty of other ships.”
Kaye smiled at him. “We each have our individual motivations for volunteering for this journey, Hudson. Koehler simply loved the stars. Alan—” her eyes found Conrad’s—“wanted a chance to lead men under new conditions, test his power of adaptation as a coordinator. As a psychiatrist, my reason is primarily an interest in human reaction to such inhuman conditions as this, and possibly to help in case of maladjustments. But yours, Hudson, seems to be compensatory. Don’t you get any personal satisfaction? Is a dream of some future vast conquest your whole motivation?”
“Is it?” Hudson was on his feet. His eyes were narrow. “I rather think it’s my own affair; I’m not concerned with your psuedo-scientific prying.”
Conrad intervened. “Break it up! I hope we can all realize how important unity is going to be from here on out. Come on and let’s see what the control chamber has to say.”