The Collected Stories

by Earl

  It was Swinerton. We like to think, the rest of us, that Swinerton knew a grand atonement before he died. He knew he was saving the life of the man who had first saved his, the man he had once wished to murder. The rest of us don’t have that consolation.

  Karsen has picked up remarkably. He is sitting up in his bunk, figuring again. We can see that behind his cleared eyes works a cleared brain. We will certainly need that clear, cool brain!

  Our velocity is still a little too high. If we simply approached the moon, braking by rocket blasts, we would not have enough fuel for the actual landing. We would crash. To cut our speed without fuel, a frightful gamble must be tried, says Karsen.

  His course-plotting around the sun was in sweeping figures, dealing with a mighty sun and days of time. Now he must calculate with more dangerously delicate forces, using the moon’s smaller gravitation. The slightest shade of miscalculation here will spell our destruction instantly.

  We must skim over the moon’s rocky hard surface with just feet to spare! It is the only way we can pull ourselves below the margin of landing speed—

  SIX Hundred Forty-First Day.

  We are ready to try our moon-skimming maneuver. Tarnay has carefully lined our ship in accord with Karsen’s instructions. We are all tense, ready.

  We are sailing over the ramparts of mighty Tycho, missing them by inches. Hold it!

  We felt for just a second the grind of a rock edge on our lower hull. Karsen grins as though he had planned that masterful touch.

  Continuing on our tangent course, we can feel the pull of the moon, dragging at the ship, helping to slow it down. We are two hundred miles high now. Markers has just announced that our relative speed is below the mark set by Karsen for safe landing. We will blast out with our rockets now.

  We have spied the construction camp near Tycho, where the Space Commission is erecting a permanent sunpower station and trans-earth space port. We will land in the valley north of it. If you’re listening down below there, have about five barrels of hot coffee ready for us, will you?

  Will resume after landing. . . .

  LANDING successful, with one quart of rocket fuel to spare! We cheered Karsen and started pounding him on the back until Captain Atwell stopped us. Poor Karsen, grinning like a schoolboy, hardly knows what to make of being a hero. When we said there would be a parade in his special honor back on Earth, to pin a medal on his chest, he actually turned pale.

  Tarnay just said a startling thing. He suddenly remembered, quite clearly, that his blood is type Two-A. If Swinerton hadn’t so positively denied it, Tarnay too could have been a donor. Swinerton deliberately sacrificed himself!

  I look out now at the camp, and at the mountain beside it—Charles Swinerton Mountain. We see the great blue sparks at the top of it, sparks that will continue to flash as long as man can replace the seleno-cell up there. It brings an aching memory to Captain Atwell, Parlett, Markers and myself, veterans of the Mars Expedition. Charles Swinerton installed that first seleno-cell up there, as a signal to our rescue ship, sacrificing his life in the process. We see the workmen who are inscribing his name there in giant letters of gold.

  Another name will go there, that of Richard Swinerton, his brother. His body will lie in the same crypt at the top. The two named Swinerton can look eternally out into space that conquered only their lives, not their great, pioneering spirit.

  In the annals of space travel will go three more names, those who died on Venus—Domberg, Greaves and Wilson.

  Men in space suits are running across the valley now, toward us. Soon we will be greeting them.

  Venus Expedition Number One signing off.

  ADAM LINK, ROBOT DETECTIVE

  Adam Link, the strangest character ever to gain the status of a human being, finds a new field for his talents and dons human guise to become a detective.

  I HAD just finished writing my last account. It was about Dr. Hillory, who had driven Eve, my created mind-mate, to commit crime. He had brought about her death, in a battle, at my own hands.[*]

  There her great eight-foot body lay, silent as a shut-down machine. Grief overcame me, an emotion as real and deep as any you humans have. I pictured her as a human form lying there—a young, lovely girl. But she was dead now.

  It had begun to rain. Kneeling beside her, I removed my top skull-plate. The rain, pouring into my sensitive iridium-sponge brain, would short-circuit my life-current. I would join Eve in blessed non-existence.

  Kay and Jack Hall, and Tom Link found me that way when they arrived a moment later. Police were with them. “Adam! Adam Link!” Jack yelled.

  “Hillory is dead! We saw him fall down the cliff. Your troubles are over. Adam, what are you doing—”

  But I heard no more. A hiss sounded from within me, as the water touched a live wire. Smoke curled up from my exposed metal brain.

  Adam and Eve, the first of intelligent robot life, were leaving the world not meant for them . . .

  AWARENESS came to me instantaneously, as it always does when I am “revived.” I looked around. I was inside Dr. Hillory’s laboratory, out of the rain. Jack and Tom stood before me, smiling in relief. Kay knelt beside Eve’s form, lying supine on the floor. The police had helped drag us in. They stood watching, somewhat at a loss over this resuscitation of robots.

  I started. I heard a moan. A raspy, metallic sound. It came from Eve’s microphonic throat!

  “You poor fool!” Jack exploded at me. “Your final blow stunned, not killed, her. Haven’t you heard of someone being knocked cold? She’s coming to. You blithering idiot, taking her for dead—”

  It was true. I crawled beside Eve. Her eyelids clicked open. I could almost feel the terror that flicked through her. Her last impression had been my crashing steel fists at her with all my frightful machine power. She took in the situation at a glance, in that quick way we robots have.

  “Adam—” one of her hands reached for mine. It was all she could say in her joy. I couldn’t say anything.

  “As for you,” Jack continued, “we jerked off a battery-cable before the short-circuit burned out your brain, dragged you in, and after drying, reconnected you. Just about in time, you crazy, senseless tin boob—”

  Kay stopped his vehement “bawling out,” which I deserved. I am supposed to be a cold, clear intelligence. Yet like a hysterical neurotic, I had very nearly clipped off our two robot lives. Hand in hand, Jack and Kay looked down at us, Eve and me, also with our hands together. They understood why I had been driven frantic.

  Jack was now grinning. “With Hillory out of the way, you can start life all over, Adam and Eve Link—”

  “Just a minute!”

  The police captain stepped forward. “I have a warrant for the arrest of Adam Link, for the robbery of Midcity Bank and the murder of Joshua Kalb!”

  This new blow was like lightning. Trouble had not ceased to dog our footsteps for so long that I had forgotten what happiness had been.

  Jack whirled. “But Dr. Hillory caused that. You see, Hillory used remote radio control and had Adam and Eve Link in his power. He is the true robber and murderer—”

  The police captain was terse. “Sorry, I’m following orders. Evidence shows that a robot did both crimes. Adam Link must come with me.”

  “But it wasn’t Adam Link,” Tom spoke up suddenly. “It was Eve Link!”

  “No, it was I!” I snapped quickly. I didn’t want Eve to go through all the turmoil of a court trial—and face possible sentence, if worst came to worst. I sent a searching, almost angry glance at Tom Link.

  “Eve, I say,” Tom insisted.

  “I’ll have to take them both along,” said the police officer. He and his men were smiling. The whole thing, I could see, struck them as queerly humorous. Particularly one robot trying to shield another, like humans might. Only Jack and Kay and Tom, my friends, understood.

  But I noticed that behind their smiles, the police were tense, ready to grab for their pistols. One of us, myself or Eve, w
as a murderer. More than that, we were fearsome metal monsters, eight feet tall. I could see that inevitable thought coursing through their minds—Frankenstein!

  No use to resist, of course. It would have been easy—Eve and I rushing through them and laughing at their bullets. Yes, but then what? Hounded, persecuted, through the woods and hills. State militia called as a last resort, surrounding us with grenades and heavy guns, with orders to destroy the two loose monsters. No, that was the last thing in the world I would do. I had patterned my life in the human way. We would face the agencies of law, though I hated the thought of again going through its legal claptrap.

  “Come, Eve,” I said quietly. “We must deal with humans on their own footing.”

  We were taken down the mountain road to the city in one of the two squad cars. The engine groaned with our combined half-ton of weight. Jack, Kay and Tom followed in their car.

  BEFORE the indictment a few hours later, Tom managed to whisper to me.

  “Don’t shield Eve, Adam. Let her go through the trial. She will then acquire human status, as you did in yours. I’m certain I can save her from the charges—but only with you as witness of Hillory’s evil control. You are a human, in court records. Therefore your testimony will be official!”

  I nodded. Tom’s clear legal reasoning had foreseen all that. My thoughts leaped ahead. Eve exonerated, legally a human. Then both of us would apply for citizenship, as my creator, Dr. Link, had from the first day of my “birth” visioned. And even—my heart sang—a church wedding for Eve and me! Then we would be the legal equals of full-fledged humans, in the eyes of the world.

  The words of the official reading the indictment crashed into my hopeful thoughts.

  “Eve Link is hereby accused of the robbery of Midcity Bank, and of the murders of Joshua Kalb, John Deering, Tony Pucelli, and Hans Unger, all of this city!”

  Tom started. “What?” he demanded. “Why is Eve Link being accused of three other murders?”

  The official looked up with a hard cynicism.

  “Investigation reports came in, just before we drew up the final indictment. The next night, after Kalb’s murder, those other three were murdered—Deering, Pucelli and Unger. In each case, clues pointed to a robot. Marks on their bodies could only have been done by a metal instrument. Even bits of metal filing were found!”

  Jack groaned, at my side.

  “I get it! You remember how the papers played up the robot angle immediately after Kalb’s death. Everybody read it the next morning. Some clever criminal organization in the city, seeing that, promptly carried out three of their gang murders the next night. Using metal clubs, and leaving metal filings, it points to Eve as the culprit, continuing her ‘brutal, berserk murder of innocent humans’—as the papers played up Kalb’s death!”

  He groaned again. “How clever—how damnably clever!”

  The official shrugged. “You’ll have to prove your claims in court. The trial will be held in a month.”

  Tom Link turned a pale face to me. He didn’t have to say it.

  Eve was doomed!

  Tom might prove Hillory’s actual guilt in the case of Kalb. But three other lives had been taken wantonly, cold-bloodedly, by the Frankenstein monster named Eve Link!

  Frankenstein! Frankenstein! Already I could hear the word shrieking through the city, in every newspaper and from every radio speaker. Eve had the noose around her neck.

  Jack put a hand on my arm. I think I was trembling. When my thoughts are disorganized, my internal machinery is also.

  “Well put detectives on the job,” Jack said. “We have a month’s time—” But he exchanged a hopeless glance with Tom.

  Detectives. A month’s time. A clever criminal ring that had covered up its trail cunningly. A whole city aroused against the robots parading as humans, taking life in secret. It added up to zero—for Eve. My thoughts crashed to that conclusion in seconds.

  I warned Tom and Jack to say no more, I turned to Eve.

  “Go to your cell. They will lock you in. On no account must you try to leave.” I paused. “We must accept what comes. The case is hopeless. Do you understand, dear?”

  Eve was shocked. I could detect that in the way her internal hum had missed a moment, exactly as a human heart may skip. She had been waiting for one word of hope from me. I gave her none. She was led away in a dead silence.

  “I’ll visit her every day,” Kay said sympathetically. “Poor child, she’ll feel so frightened and alone.” She glanced at me almost contemptuously for my brutal dismissal.

  CHAPTER II

  My Disguise

  “DRIVE to my mountain cabin-laboratory,” I directed, when we were outside.

  It was not till we were there that I spoke again.

  “Out with it,” Jack demanded shrewdly. “Something’s seething in that brain of yours.”

  “I thought you were a man, Adam Link!” Kay said furiously. “A man who would fight for one he loves. You could at least have said one word of encouragement. Why did you tell poor Eve that the case was hopeless?”

  I winced a little under her scorn. But I spoke firmly, “For the benefit of the officials. And the reporters waiting for the least little rumor or report to play up. And most important, for the benefit, eventually, of the criminal ring dumping their murders in Eve’s lap. They’ll sit back now, confident that we won’t try a thing. They won’t know that a detective is on the case. A detective by the name of—Adam Link!” They gasped.

  “You!” Jack snapped.

  “Yes, why not? Without meaning to boast, I think quicker than any human. I have super-keen ears and eyes. I have strength and quickness and powers no human detective has. I can do more in a month than ten men.”

  Jack shook his head sadly. “You’ve forgotten one thing, Adam. You’ve naturally come to think of yourself as human. But the whole meaning of the word detective is spying in secret. How can you—with your metal body?”

  I stepped to my workbench and brought back a bowl of sticky, rubbery plastic, “I was working on this before Hillory upset my plans. I was toying with the idea of—well, look—”

  I smeared some of the plastic over my frontal-plate, with a spatula. It was opaque, hiding the metal. Its color was that of human flesh.

  “My disguise,” I said. “Human disguise.”

  I turned to the thought-helmet, the one with which Hillory had diabolically controlled Eve. Now there would be at least one benefit from the hell we had been through. The thought-helmets were a godsend in this hour of need.

  Switching on the power, I sent a radio-beam searching for Eve’s mind. My electrical thoughts modulated the beam, in a process akin to telepathy.

  “Eve!” I called. “Can you hear me?”

  “Adam!” came back almost instantly over the conducting beam. “I’ve been so afraid—”

  “Don’t be, darling,” I returned. “And forgive me for leaving you so coldly. It was necessary. I’m going to save you, Eve. I’m going to save you!”

  But it was not till two precious weeks later that I began.

  I had had to work day and night, perfecting the plastic, giving it the rubbery consistency of human flesh. And also making it adhere firmly to metal. I think a human chemist would not have solved the problem in a year. But I was driven by a demon. Every tick of my internal-electrical distributor counted off the hours with the noose tightening around Eve’s neck.

  I USED my former, smaller body, before adopting the giant one in my battle against Eve’s giant one. It stood five feet ten—human height. Covered with plastic, my torso was rather thick, giving me the appearance of a burly man. The legs and arms were easy, though it was a trick to pat the plastic into folds at the joints. I cut my fiat feet-plates down, to the proportions of a human foot. Covered with clothes, the imperfections of my pseudo-human body weren’t glaring. The important thing was that my hard metal was covered with a softer medium.

  Molding my face and hands took the most delicate labor. They would
be exposed to constant sight. Jack and Kay were my faithful assistants. Tom was down in the city, delving into the case.

  My hands came out as big hams, worthy of a prize-fighter. The fingers were rather stiff, because of the metal “bone” beneath. Jack carefully set human hair into the plastic, over the knuckles, in keeping with my general appearance as a big, brawny man. He molded my facial features with a master’s touch—outjutting chin, heavy straight lips, low forehead. He couldn’t resist giving me a slight pug nose and a cauliflower ear. Over my shiny skull he glued a wig of matty black hair. And a rather heavy mustache on my upper lip, to help conceal the fact that it didn’t move when I talked.

  The eyes were a problem. I made them myself, two little hemispheres of clear thin glass. My vision was somewhat distorted, and it was a blue world after Jack applied blue-stain for irises.

  Kay did her part, rougeing the cheeks and lips cleverly, to take away the dead-flesh texture. Little touches of cosmetics around the eyes and nose blended the features properly.

  “There!” Jack grunted finally, with his irrepressible sense of humor. “Didn’t know I was a master sculptor down underneath!”

  They surveyed me critically, from top to toe. I wore a dark tweed suit and a cap pulled low. Suddenly, though they tried to resist, they burst out laughing. I could not blame them when I looked in a full-length mirror.

  In the glare of electric light, I was perhaps the strangest looking being imaginable. A big, hulking-shouldered man with a dead “pan” and clumsy arms and legs. Jack stopped laughing and substituted a shaded lamplight for the overhead glare. And there, in the half-gloom, with imperfections hidden, I seemed suddenly to come to life.

  “You’ll do,” Jack nodded soberly. “You can work only at night, though. And keep out of bright lights. Outside of a certain stiffness in your carriage—which might come from being muscle-bound like any has-been fighter—you’re Pete Larch, the pug.”