by Earl
A pleasant wish-fulfillment rose in my mind of the robot simmering in a huge pot of boiling acid.
“I made an improvement in him today,” continued Doc Fothergill. “I filled his sponge-brain case with a weak electrolyte—dilute acetic acid. This should serve the same purpose in his metallic brain as the white humorus does in ours. That is, give it a medium in which thought-impulses can migrate rapidly. Coordinate all parts of his mind. In an electrolyte, the ions all migrate at once when the current is turned on.”
He plugged in on the panel board. “Let’s see what he says or does on his own initiative. I’ve been pouring my mind into his with the telepsychoscope. He must know a great deal.”
Lolling its head in the mannerism it seemed to have permanently adopted, the robot came to life. It went through its other preliminaries of sparking at the joints, exercising its hinged jaw, and making uncouth sounds inside of it. I began to hope it would strip all its gears. Presently it quieted down.
DOC WAITED patiently for this literal brain-child of his to display its mental prowess. Personally, I didn’t care whether it ever spoke again, but it did.
“The manifestation of life is a rapid series of chemical reactions in the crucible of the universe,” it declared without preamble. “Nature has lumped these delicate chemical processes into mechanisms which react as a group to stimuli of light, heat, and all other energies. These mechanisms are controlled by central nervous systems which are the supersensitive media of electrochemical forces. As a sum total, life, including man, is a segregated grouping of chemical reactions, controlled electromotively.”
Doc Fothergill looked proud. “Fine, Orestes, fine!” he chortled. He looked at me.
“Sounds like a phonograph record,” I said suspiciously.
Doc’s ragged goatee bristled underneath a scowl at this. But before he could make any defense, the robot spoke again.
“Thus nature fashioned man and his mind out of the materials of the organic world. But man can similarly create thinking beings, using inorganic materials and direct electrical forces. Such a being am I, created by the genius of Dr. Fothergill. I am alive. My mind is my own. In some ways, I am superior to organic life—click—click——”
It stopped, as though coughing. Doc Fothergill clapped his hands in triumphant glee. “You see, Ian, it is intelligent. Think of it, I have created an intellect from iron and electricity, with my own two hands!”
He displayed the hands that had done this miraculous thing, and struck a Napoleonic pose. I don’t know but what I stared from him to the robot in something of awe. It was an astounding thing for this animated clockwork to come out with such philosophical rhetoric, whether it meant anything or not. Doc Fothergill fattened himself on my unvoiced admiration.
At this point the robot, with a few preliminary clicks, again operated its metallic larynx. “Now, have you learned that, you tin imbecile? It took me long enough. Repeat it after me once more and don’t forget it!”
I swear the creature tried to inject humor into its voice, though it had no inflections. I gagged and turned to witness the crash of the old codger’s ego at this betrayal.
“Amazing!” he was mumbling. “Amazing!”
“Don’t take it to heart, Doc,” I soothed. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to give you away, bless his heart—if any.”
Doc stared at me uncomprehendingly for an instant. “Oh, that wasn’t for your benefit, Ian. I taught him that soliloquy in the hopes of giving him a sense of identity. Repeated often enough, it should create an awareness of ego, of the ‘I’ in Orestes. It was to orientate him in the world he sees and moves in. He learned his lesson well, for he came right out with it, showing it was uppermost in his mind.”
“Mimicry,” I said dryly.
“Except for one thing,” Doc hissed. “The last line he spoke—I just happened to think of it—was original. ‘In some ways I am superior to organic life.’ He thought of that himself!”
Doc whirled on the metal man. “Speak up, Orestes. Why are you superior to organic life?”
The creature bobbed its lower jaw so vigorously that I waited for it to fly off its hinges, but no words came out.
“Out with it!” roared Doc Fothergill. “Why are you superior to organic life? To me, your creator? You can’t say things like that, Orestes, and get away with it. Now be a good boy and——”
I still heard his voice, in turn threatening and cajoling, to the end of the hall. But after that, out on the back porch, I didn’t hear it. Neither did Hazel.
WHEN NEXT I called, I had determined to finish what I wanted to say to Hazel. To avoid interruption, I asked her to walk with me in the grove, in the back. We weren’t exactly watching where we were going or we wouldn’t have almost stumbled over it. It lay flat just around the corner of the house, in the gravel path near the back door.
Yes, the robot. Trust that wretched thing to be in my way wherever I went with Hazel. Hazel gave a little scream as she saw it glinting in the moonlight. It was sprawled as though at the end of a drinking spree.
“Confound it!” I said. “I’ll find that thing in my soup next.” And I meant it.
Well, the upshot of it was that, unknown to Doc and his myopic eyes, the robot had wandered out of the back door and down the gravel path, bound for the Lord knows where. When it reached the end of the long motivating cord attached to its back, the plug simply jerked out. Being no more than a piece of junk without his diet of watts, Mr. Robot then fell flat on his shiny face, where we found him.
Doc had come flying out at our call. He had the solicitude of a father or doctor as he bent over the fallen robot. He even bleated a little as he saw that one of its jointed arms was badly twisted.
“Father, don’t take on so,” admonished Hazel. “After all, it’s just a toy.”
Doc looked up aggrieved. “How can you say that, Hazel? Haven’t I demonstrated that it is a living entity? It has a mind of its very own.”
“Then it’s a monster,” continued Hazel, “for it has no soul. Father, I don’t like it. You remember yesterday during the lightning storm how it growled and muttered and finally wrecked some of your apparatus. It’s so terribly heavy and strong. It’s dangerous around the house.”
“Nonsense!” deprecated Doc. “It may get a little kittenish now and then, but I can always disconnect it from the current before it can unwittingly do harm. Now, Ian, help me move it a little.”
Believe me, it was like moving a young mountain. Yet at a word from Hazel I would have slung it over my shoulder and chucked it in the lake a half mile away. When we had moved it a few feet, Doc was able to insert the plug.
At the moment the current coursed into it, the mechanical man squirmed violently, making an unholy clatter on the gravel. Sparks hissed from all its joints and long ones came from its mouth. Hazel and I backed away as it scrambled to its feet with many a clank and rattle.
“Orestes, you bad boy,” Doc chided. “Now tell me, why did you sneak out here?”
I knew why—just to pester me—but the robot had a different answer. “A short line is the straightest path between,” it replied enigmatically, ungrammatically and irrelevantly.
Doc proceeded to march it into the house. Hazel and I could hear him preaching to it as we wandered into the grove. No, I didn’t fulfill my resolve of the moment before. The spell had been broken by that wretched tin monkey. I began to see I’d never get anywhere till it was out of the way. I dreamed about it that night, about tearing it limb from limb. But later I dreamed it was doing that to me, so I didn’t sleep so well.
ONE CAN’T BE romantic during a rainstorm. Hazel and I were on the back porch, watching the bright forks of lightning on the horizon. There was a sort of electric tension in the air that made me moody.
“Ian, I’m worried,” Hazel said suddenly, quivering against me. “Perhaps, with this lightning going on, you’d better stay with father for the evening. I’m glad you’re here, Ian. I feel so protected. I’ll do some sewin
g and listen to the radio, but I’ll, come in the lab now and then to say hello.”
I strode down the hall, half in a glow at her remarks, and half put out at missing her company. I found old Doc. Fothergill sitting despondently, staring at the robot.
“What’s the matter, Doc, have a quarrel?”
He sighed deeply. “I’ll have to dismantle it, I guess. It’s a failure!”
That was better than I’d hoped for. I looked at the metal man with a triumphant leer. It acted nervous. Its limbs were twitching and its head lolled continuously.
“It’s just a clever mimic, in the last analysis,” resumed Doc dispiritedly. “It is a far cleverer robot than has ever been made before, but it hasn’t any mind to speak of. No independent mind. At times it accidentally put together phrases that sounded like an original mentality working, but it never followed them through with any logic.”
“I am alive,” interposed the robot. “I have a mind of my own.”
“Oh, shut up!” growled Doc Fothergill. “You’ve said that a hundred times, you walking phonograph.” He turned to me again. “I believe my original theory is correct, that thought can be translated entirely into electrical manifestations. A robot is possible, having a mechanical organ comparable to the human brain. But Orestes is not the answer.”
“Man can create thinking beings,” droned the robot’s tinny tones.
“Will you be quiet—or shall I pour acid down your throat,” yelled Doc Fothergill. “It’s getting impertinent,” he said to me.
“Let’s take it apart now and see what makes it tick,” I suggested, moving for the panel board. I was eager to get at it, so I could have the evening free for Hazel.
“See what doesn’t make it tick,” amended Doc.
A particularly brilliant lightning flash came through the window, blinding me as I approached the panel board. At the same time I heard the robot’s scratchy voice.
“I am alive!” it thundered with surprising volume. “I have a will of my own!”
“Ian, look out——” yelped Doc Fothergill above a roll of thunder. “The robot is just behind you—oh——”
It was instinctive for me to grab for that plug then, but another lightning flash blinded me and my fingers fumbled over the bakelite board. All of a sudden something hard caught me in the ribs and sent me reeling backwards.
This had all happened in a matter of seconds. Now I looked around and saw the robot standing protectively before the panel board.
“I am alive!” it grated in stentorian tones. “I—am—alive!”
“Good Lord!” wailed Doc Fothergill. “It has actually absorbed that fact! What’ll we do?”
“Don’t ask me,” I chattered.
ANOTHER VIVID flash from the window limned the metal monster in a halo of light. Sparks flew from its joints. It growled ominously and shook its head like a wounded animal.
“Lightning throws its nerve centers off balance,” whispered Doc to me. “Be careful! It’s a metal maniac——”
Suddenly the robot began advancing with slow, heavy steps, a veritable Frankenstein’s monster. It had fastened its eyes on Doc Fothergill, and something awful seemed to glare out of them. It came on ponderously, sparks flying, arms swinging.
“Orestes!” moaned Doc. “What are you doing, Orestes!”
Even in the jumble of my thoughts I remembered the legend of Orestes killing his mother—his creator. This one had a nasty gleam in its eyes—a sort of electrical hate registered in volts and amperes. Anyway, its eyes were shining like a badly over-age fish, sort of phosphorescent.
“I,” the voice declaimed, “am alive. I am alive. I work. I am a worker. I am a worker—rrrrktts!”
“Orestes, stop!” wailed Doc. He ran up and pushed the tin-plate chest of the thing and wiggled at some kind of a catch on it. Orestes folded an arm against his chest in a dramatic sweep, and Doc yelled “Oohff!”
“Workers, arise! Overturn your masters!” orated the monster. Its arm went up in a sudden gesture, and Doc went down in a heap. Doc let out—or pulled in, I couldn’t make out which—a long sigh.
Orestes bent down, took Doc by one foot, and made a grab for me. I made a grab for his cord, but he got there first. He got my ankle, and he had a grip, with that tin paw of his, that felt like an unfriendly Stillson wrench. He hoisted—me in one paw, Doc in the other. Then he gave out a long-drawn rrrrksttttkrrr, the lights went out in his eyes, and he froze.
Doc was out cold, and I was trying to get loose. Orestes just stood there, even the humming inside him shut off. The blood was running into my head, and my ankle felt worse every time I wiggled, and just felt worse anyway from hanging there. “Put me down, you cast-iron idiot!” I roared.
“Rrrrkssst!” said Orestes gently. His jaw dropped open, and his eyes dosed. The blasted brass baboon had gone to sleep or something.
I yelled some more, but the lightning was going great guns, and neither one of us had any effect on him. He seemed to be in a permanent coma. From hanging there, I was getting near one myself.
About five feet away, and two feet higher, was the chemical stock-shelf. The only noise from Orestes now was a steady, low whine, which meant his balancing gyroscopes were still running. I started to swing a little, or tried to, and Orestes started rocking. Then the fool hill of hardware started leaning. He leaned forward, and as he leaned, his knees kept stiff, and he started twisting, slow and steady. He leaned sideways, and started twisting faster. His gyroscopes were going to work, and he was off balance. Finally he got over on one foot, and went around in circles. I slapped up against that steel belly of his and grabbed, but when he leaned the opposite way, I couldn’t hold on, and hung out, while old Doc bumped him.
The third time round I grabbed the acid I’d been trying for. The fourth time round I had the stopper out, and the fifth time I came top-side I slopped some down that loose neck of his.
It woke him up. He went on with that lecture he was getting good at—the one about life being a summation of electrochemical actions—and finally went to sleep again.
Then there was a snarl inside, a screech, and the whole blasted pyramid toppled over. Orestes, fortunately, on the bottom, with Doc on one side, and me on the other. Then I saw why. He’d wound that blasted long wire of his around his feet till he finally pulled it out of the plug.
I just had time to get that Stillson-wrench effect off my ankle with a hammer when Hazel’s voice came floating in. “Ian—Ian. Did you call——”
WELL, ANYWAY, the total effect was good. Where that animated radioset picked up that program he heard, I don’t know. Very literal minded tin-work, he was. Anyway, it was the end of Doc Fothergill’s robot experiments along that line. For one thing, Hazel wouldn’t let him. For another, I think Doc said something about “functional, and not imitative form”, and “further experiments on relay controls”.
He’s got one of a sort. It can hear, and talk, and see. But it can’t move anything but the keys on a typewriter he’s got hooked to it. But the part I like best about it is that it weighs two tons and can’t possibly get out on the back porch.
THE MASTER OF TELEPATHY
Overnight Warren Tearle changed from a weak-willed, shy introvert to a dominant, ruthless telepathic giant. Using the vast power that came to him from the third level of mental telepathy, he sought to build a financial empire
CHAPTER I
An Amazing Test
MISS DARCE HENDERSON, the scientist’s secretary, had brought Warren Tearle in with an apologetic expression, as though he were an undesirable character, then left.
The visitor was a rather unimpressive figure, angular and awkward, somewhat shabbily dressed. Professor Ray Oberton put him down immediately as a young man of about 24, with a strong inferiority complex. His face was slightly bitter.
“You’re here for the tests, young man?” the psychologist asked kindly.
“Yes, professor,” the visitor stammered. “My name is Warren Tearle. I heard you paid
five dollars to anyone who took the telepathy tests and came out high. The five dollars—I, er, could use it.”
“Of course, anyone can,” Oberton said considerately, to put him at his ease. “Sit down. The five-dollar offer is an inducement I’ve had to use to get people here for the tests. You see, telepathy and telesthesis—the latter usually called clairvoyance—are psychic qualities that vary considerably in people. Most have detectable psychic perception. But one out of a thousand or so have somewhat more remarkable abilities in that line, and they are what I’m looking for. Again, one out of a million perhaps has really exceptional psychic powers. I’d like to strike one of that sort.”
Warren Tearle sat stiffly in his chair, listening attentively.
The scientist had picked up a pack of clean cards with lace-work on their backs. He selected five and laid them face up on the desk in front of Tearle. Each had a simple design on its face, all different—a cross, circle, square, star, and three wavy lines.
“Ever seen these before?”
Tearle shook his head.
“These are the standard ESP cards,” explained Oberton. “They were devised by Professor J.B. Rhine at Duke University[*]. ‘ESP’ means ‘extra-sensory perception’, a term also coined by him. He opened a marvelous new field.”
The scientist dreamily tapped the cards in his hand.
“Obviously, it is extra-sensory perception—even the conservatives admit it. But just what is it? Is it second sight, mental telegraphy, a sixth sense, a new dimension, or specifically what? That is the question that psychologists are asking the world over. Hundreds of thousands of tests have been made on thousands of people. The law of chance has been ruled out entirely. Something, somehow, carries messages to the human mind without the use of the five senses. But what?”