The Collected Stories

by Earl

  Fifteen minutes later Hackett became alarmed. The pulse-meter kept going down! It reached the normal of seventy and lowered still more! When it dropped to below sixty, Hackett sensed that something was wrong. He snapped off the life-battery, put the mirror aside, and tried to waken the old man. He shook him gently and then vigorously, panic-stricken. The pulse-meter read fifty.

  At last the eyelids fluttered and opened half way. Dr. Henry looked up wearily.

  “Let me sleep,” he murmured. “Sleep—”

  “Dr. Henry!” cried Hackett, shaking him frenziedly. “You must wake up! Your pulse is down to forty-five now. Dr. Henry!”

  Again the eyes opened.

  “No—cannot wake up! I will go to sleep—forever. I deceived you—did not tell you that some of the guinea-pigs I treated—did not recover. But don’t blame yourself. I was willing to take the chance. I have lost. Good-by, boy—”

  SHOCKED to the core of his being Hackett saw the pulse-meter swing down to forty and then dive downward. The needle hit its bottom stay with a sharp click. Dr. Henry gave one convulsive shudder and then his body lay still. His wasted, tortured body had found peace at last.

  How long Hackett stood there, staring in dazed bewilderment, he never knew. Nor did he know by what process of reasoning or madness he came to do what he then did. He only knew that he had the bone mirror in his hand again and was playing it up and down over the corpse. The life-beam had brought other things—dead things—to life. Why not Dr. Henry’s dead body? That thought swung pendulumlike in his bewildered, desperate mind.

  “Dr. Henry! Thank God—”

  Thus he cried out as the first signs of life again came to the corpse. But he choked on the words and staggered back. What had happened?

  The figure that slowly sat up and opened its eyes was not Dr. Henry! It was some monster, some alien life inhabiting the body that had been Dr. Henry’s! The face was idiotic, drooling. The body writhed horribly.

  Suddenly it sprang up, twisting madly around. A horrible travesty of human life, it began sniffing as though looking for food. Its mad eyes caught the figure of Hackett. With a horrifying, gurgling cry it leaped at him—

  And hour later Lee Hackett reeled out of the old house, sick to the bottom of his soul. Back there in the dark laboratory he had left a shapeless broken thing on the floor. A twice-dead thing that had once been the body of Dr. Henry. Beside him, smashed to splinters, was the life-battery.

  Lee Hackett realized that Dr. Henry had been wrong in one thing. Life was not just consciousness—it was also soul.

  THE TRIAL OF ADAM LINK

  Adam Link, thinking robot, goes on trial for his life, and finds himself facing the hate of a world.

  CHAPTER I

  Monster or Man?

  I THINK I must have had the same feeling, when I “awoke” that any of you humans would have had, suddenly coming to life—when your last thought had been the certainty of “death”. I felt I had been resurrected from a grave. I couldn’t understand. I was “alive” again!

  I looked around and saw the group of men, armed with scythes, clubs and guns, who had hunted me down in the past three days. They had branded me as the killer of Dr. Link, my late creator. They had cornered me here, in his laboratory. Why hadn’t they smashed and pounded me to broken wheels and scattered mechanical parts, as they had fully intended?

  I had turned off the master-switch on my chest myself, blinking out my consciousness, lest I rise and harm them—in instinctive self-defense. I had literally committed suicide! Who had snapped the switch back on?

  Then I noticed the blazing-eyed young man facing them. The armed party were muttering and waving their weapons at me, but my unexpected champion had evidently stayed there—shall I call it mob bloodlust? He turned suddenly to me. He was young and square-jawed, and vaguely familiar in some way. He had grey, intelligent eyes. I liked him instantly. Though I am a robot, I form likes and dislikes among the humans I meet.

  “Are you all right—Adam Link?” he asked. He added the name given me by Dr. Link with some hesitation, but clearly. He was addressing me as one living entity to another. To use an appropriate expression—as man to man. Only one other had ever done that, in my six months of life—Dr. Link himself.

  I arose from my sitting posture, in which I had been since I had turned myself off. I nearly toppled over. One of my legs was badly twisted. I took swift appraisal and noticed the dents on my metal-wrought shoulders and chest. The top of my skull-plate, too, was dented, pressing down slightly on the electrical brain within. From that, for lack of a better term, I had a headache.

  Obviously, I had been saved just in time. The enraged, vengeful posse had begun to smash me. But no vital harm had been done.

  “I can be repaired,” I replied. The armed men fell back uneasily at the sound of my microphonic voice. Why are humans so afraid of that which they cannot understand? Then I looked at the young man, wishing I could show gratitude.

  “Thank you for what you have done,” I said. “Who are you?”

  “I’M Thomas Link, Dr. Link’s nephew, and his closest living relative,” he said. Instantly I saw the family resemblance, and knew why he had seemed so familiar, though I had never seen him before.

  He went on, speaking to the others as much as myself. “I have been practicing law, in San Francisco. I hurried here when I heard of my uncle’s death. He has left everything to me. I see I have come just in time to prevent the destruction—the wanton murder, gentlemen!—of Adam Link, my uncle’s intelligent robot.”

  “Huh—murder!” said the leader of the men, scoffingly. He was the county sheriff and carried a high-powered rifle under his arm. “This—this thing isn’t a man. It’s a machine. A clever, diabolical machine that killed your uncle in cold blood!”

  “I don’t believe it!” snapped young Tom Link quickly. “My uncle wrote me many letters about this robot. He said it was as rational as any human being. Perhaps more so than you, sheriff! And not in the least dangerous, in any remote Frankenstein way. My uncle was a clear-headed thinker and scientist. What he said, I accept. You will not destroy this robot!”

  The sheriff’s face reddened. Tom had been rather tactless in comparing him and myself. “We will!” he shouted. “It’s a dangerous monster. As the representative of the law in this matter, it is my rightful duty to protect the community. If a tiger were loose in this county, I would destroy it.” He raised his rifle and the men behind him muttered with rising feelings.

  I wonder if I have an emotion akin to your human anger? He had compared me to a tiger! I know what a tiger is, from my extensive reading. My electronic brain hummed, and I started to speak, but Tom Link motioned me silent.

  “Stop, sheriff!” he said warningly. “The robot—if you choose to consider it that way—was part of my uncle’s property. Now it is my property. I am a lawyer. I know my rights. If you touch the robot, I’ll sue you in court for wilful destruction of a piece of my property!”

  The law officer gasped. “Well—uh—” He began again, lamely. “But this is different! This robot is a moving, li—no, not living—but anyway—uh—it’s a creature, and—” He was too muddled by the sudden change of concept to go on.

  Tom Link smiled. I suddenly perceived that he was a very clever young man. He had planned this trap! “Right, sheriff,” he said quickly. “This robot is a creature. It is not an animal, for animals don’t talk. It is a manlike being. Therefore, like any other talking, thinking man, he is entitled to a court trial!”

  The sheriff tried to remonstrate, but Tom hustled him out, and the other men with him. “If you want to continue prosecution of Adam Link, the intelligent robot,” was Tom’s parting shot, “come back with a warrant of arrest!”

  TOM turned to me when we were alone. “Whew!” He wiped his forehead. “That was close!” Then he grinned a little, thinking perhaps of the utterly confounded look on the sheriff’s face at the last. I grinned, too, within myself. It is a feature of intelligence—w
hether in a human body or metal—to see humor in that which is ridiculous.

  I was still, however, a little puzzled. “Tell me, Tom Link,” I queried, “why you have so completely taken my side? All others, except your uncle, hated and feared me from first sight.”

  Instead of answering, Tom rummaged in his uncle’s private desk. At last he withdrew a document and let me read it. I did not quite grasp the complicated legal language, but I noticed the word “citizen” several times.

  Tom explained. “My uncle, if he hadn’t died so unfortunately, was fully determined to make you a citizen, Adam Link, as you know. He had begun to take up the matters of legal records to prove your “birth”, education and rightful status. He corresponded with me on these details at some length. In another month, I was to have come here to complete the negotiations.”

  I remembered Dr. Link’s repeated remarks that I was not just a robot, a metal man. I was life! I was a thinking being, as manlike as any clothed in flesh and blood. He had trained me, brought me up, with all the loving kindness, patience and true feeling of a mother with her own child.

  And now, with the thought of my creator, came a sadness, an ache within me. I felt as I had that day I discovered him dead, when the sunlight had seemed suddenly faded to me. You who read may smile cynically, but my “emotions”, I believe, are real and deep. Life is essentially in the mind. I have a mind.

  “He was a good man,” I said. “And you, Tom, you are my friend!”

  He smiled in his warm way, and put his hand on my shiny, hard shoulder. “I am your cousin!” he responded simply. “Blood is thicker than water, you know!”

  No play of words was intended, I knew that. I can only say that I have never heard a nobler expression. In five simple words, he showed me that he accepted me as a fellow man. Men like Tom are rare. They are the kind who, if given power, rule wisely and well. But invariably they are the very ones who have little authority. I have wondered at times—but I must not digress from this present account.

  THE rest of that day, while Tom Link went through his uncle’s effects, he talked to me at times. I told him the full story of his uncle’s accidental death and the following events:

  “We have a battle ahead of us,” he summed it up. “The battle to save you from a charge of manslaughter. After that, we will take up the matter of your—citizenship.”

  He glanced at me just a little queerly. His eyes traveled from my mirrored eyes and expressionless metal face down to my stiff, alloy legs. Perhaps for the first time, it occurred to him how strange this all was. He, a young lawyer, out to defend me, a conglomerate of wires and cogs, as though I were a human being, conceived by woman. For a moment, he may even have had doubts, now that the excitement was over and he had a chance to think about me.

  Might I not be a monster after all? Might Dr. Link not have been wrong in saying that I was the opposite of my fearsomely fabricated exterior? Who could know what weird thoughts coursed through my unhuman, unbiological brain? Might I not just be waiting for the chance to kill Tom, too, in some monstrous mood?

  I could see or feel those thoughts crowding his mind. I don’t think it’s a telepathic phenomenon. It is just that my electron-activated brain works instantaneously. The chains of memory-association within me operate with lightning rapidity. The slightest twitch of his lip and inflection in his voice revealed to me the probable thought causing them.

  I felt a little disturbed. Was my only friend to gradually turn against me? Was my cause hopeless? Was it a foregone conclusion that such an utterly alien being as myself could never be accepted in the world of man? I was like a Martian, suddenly descending upon Earth, with as little possibility of achieving friendly intercourse. You think the comparison irrelevant? I will guarantee that the first Martians, or other worldly creatures, to land on Earth—if this event ever occurs—will be destroyed blindly. You humans do not know how strong and deep within you lies the jungle instincts of your animal past. That is, in the majority of you. And it is not necessarily those in high places who are more “civilized.” But I digress again.

  While Tom was busy, I repaired myself. I am a machine, and know more about my workings than any physiologist knows of his own body. I straightened the knee-joint swivel mechanism, twisted by a bullet. Two of my fingers had broken “muscle” cables which I welded together. I took off my frontal chest plate and hammered the dents out. My removable skull-piece made simple the release of the pressure on my sponge-brain. My “headache” left.

  Finally I oiled myself completely, and substituted a fresh battery in my driving unit. In a few hours I had gone through what would correspond in a human to surgical patchings, operations and convalescence that would have taken weeks. It is very convenient, having a metal body.

  Then I went out. I wandered in the woods and came back with little Terry’s poor half-decayed body. He had been shot by the posse, accidentally, when they had hunted me. I buried him in the backyard, thinking of his joyous barks and the playful times we had had together.

  “Adam! Adam Link!”

  I started and turned. It was Tom, behind me, watching. His face was queerly glowing.

  “Forgive me,” he said softly. “I was doubting you, Adam Link, all afternoon. Doubting that you could be as nearly human as my uncle wrote you were.

  But I will never fail you again!” He was looking at the fresh grave of Terry.

  CHAPTER II

  Fighting Fear

  AS Tom had predicted, Sheriff Barclay promptly appeared the next morning, with a warrant for my arrest! He was determined to have me destroyed. Since he couldn’t do so directly, without legally entangling himself in a suit, he had taken the other course.

  “It will be a damned farce—holding a trial for a robot,” he admitted shamefacedly. “I feel like a fool. But it must be destroyed. You’re rather clever young man, but you don’t think a jury of honest, level-headed men is going to exonerate your—uh—client?”

  Tom said nothing, just set his jaw grimly.

  Sheriff Barclay looked at me. “You’re—uh—I mean it’s under arrest. It must come with us, to jail.” He was speaking to Tom, although he watched me narrowly, expecting me, I suppose, to go berserk.

  “I’m going along,” nodded Tom. “Come, Adam.”

  They had brought a truck for me—I am a 300-pound mass of metal—and drove me toward the nearby town. I had never been in one before, having lived in seclusion with Dr. Link at his country place. My first glimpse of the small city with its 50,000 inhabitants did not startle me. It is about what I had expected from my reading, and the pictures I had seen—noisy, congested, ugly, badly arranged.

  I have a mechanical mind. My scientific outlook demands efficiency and order. Before we had reached the courthouse, I had picked out a hundred basic faults in this center of human activity. And the corresponding ways to improve them. Most of all, your traffic is a slipshod maze. You must excuse my bluntness. I speak and think without circumlocution.

  A curious crowd watched as I was paraded up the courthouse steps. The news had gone around. They watched silently, awestruck. And in every face, I saw lurking fear, instinctive hatred. I had the feeling then, as never before, that I was an outcast. And doomed, in one way or another.

  The scene in the courtroom was, as the sheriff had predicted, a sort of solemn farce. The presiding judge coughed continuously. Only Tom Link was at his ease. He insisted on the full, legal method. There had been an inquest of course, before Dr. Link’s burial, in which it was established that a heavy instrument had caused death. Nothing could gainsay that my hard metal arm might have been the “instrument of death.”

  I was indicted on a manslaughter charge for the death of Dr. Charles Link, and entered in the record as “Adam Link.”

  When that had been done, Tom heaved a sigh and winked toward me. I knew what the wink meant. Again a trap had been laid, and sprung. Once my name was down in the court record, I was accorded all the rights and privileges of the machinery of ju
stice. As I know now, if Sheriff Barclay had gone to the governor of the state, instead, he could have obtained a state order to demolish me as an unlawful weapon! For I was a mechanical contrivance that (circumstantially) had taken a life!

  Tom could not have squirmed out of that charge. But Sheriff Barclay had missed that loophole. With my name down, I was a defendant—and had human status!

  Two newspaper reporters were present. One of them was staring at me closely, wonderingly. He came as near as he could, unafraid. Unafraid! The only one in the room, besides Tom, who did not fear me instinctively. He, too, could be my friend.

  I saw the question in his eager young face. “Yes, I am intelligent,” I said, achieving a hissing whisper, so no one else would hear.

  He started, then grinned pleasantly. “Okay!” he said and I know he believed. He began scribbling furiously in a notebook.

  THE formal indictment over, the bailiff led me to my cell and locked me in. Tom smiled reassurance, but when he left I felt suddenly alone, hemmed in by enemies. You humans can never have quite that feeling. Unless, perhaps, you are a spy caught by an enemy nation. But even then you know you are dying for a cause, a reason. But I was being doomed—exterminated is the word—for little else than not being understood.

  I was somewhat bewildered, and my thoughts were certainly of the type called brooding. Was Tom doing the right thing? Had he realized how tightly the coils of law would twine about me? As he had doubted me once, so now I doubted him, but with less reason. He was not the quite unknown quantity to me that I had been to him.

  Tom appeared again an hour later, waving a paper. The court officials were with him, arguing loudly. He turned.

  “Habeas Corpus!” he kept saying, calmly. “You’ve indicted Adam Link, whether he has the body of a robot or an elephant. This writ of Habeas Corpus frees the person of Adam Link, till the trial is called. I know the law. Release him!”