The Collected Stories

by Earl

  I couldn’t say a word. I could only stand, almost trembling, and wish my creator were here beside me, to know that he had not made a mistake, bringing a metal-brain to life. So many times I had thought it a mistake.

  When the committee left, I nudged Eve.

  “Well, Eve,” I couldn’t help crowing. “Here’s Utopia. You said it wouldn’t work.”

  “I was wrong, Adam, wasn’t I?”

  It didn’t occur to me till later that, like a woman, she had not quite conceded my victory. Was she reserving judgment till later.

  CHAPTER V

  Trouble in Utopia

  AND suddenly, a cloud settled over the clear horizon.

  Sam Harley came in one day, after working hours, with a dozen men behind him.

  “Anything wrong?” I asked, seeing his face set in rather grim lines. Usually the humans flocked to the recreational centers and libraries after work. “Is there anything lacking, in the line of amusements? If so, let me know. I’m ready to add anything to make life worth while.”

  “Yes, there’s something lacking, all right,” Sam Harley agreed. “And it isn’t recreation or reading. We’re tired of that. There are more important things in life.”

  “What?” I was puzzled.

  “Government,” Harley said succinctly. “Human government!”

  I felt as though he had thrown a bomb in my face. So far, in Utopia City, there had been no definite “government.” Everyone simply worked, and lived, and enjoyed life free from care and worry. I thought it was sufficient. But now, what was this strange attitude voiced by Sam Harley and his followers?

  I waited, and he went on.

  “I’ve formed a party. Gaining members, I’m now in a position to form a civic government.”

  “But I’m the civic government,” I remonstrated. “Are you dissatisfied with me?”

  “No-o,” he drew out the word slowly. “No, not exactly. But it wouldn’t be right for you, a robot, to continue as our pseudoruler. Give us back our affairs in our own hands.”

  And then I knew. It was a minor “revolution” for “independence.” I could not blame them. The human spirit chafes under imposed “rule.” Then I laughed. It really didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Let them set up their little “government” and pretend to rule. I would still be the power behind the throne. Or the guiding hand. They were like children.

  I gave in, realizing it must be so.

  Sam Harley promptly moved into the Administration Building, next to my office. “Mayor of Utopia City” was painted on his door. He apportioned various offices to his followers, and the city government was duly installed. The printing office was ordered to put a headline in the Utopia City News—“Sam Harley Appointed Mayor by Adam Link!”

  IT relieved me of many petty details in the running of the city. I had more free time, and dived eagerly into my laboratory-work once again. I wanted to add to my roster of inventions that would oil the progress of Utopia City more and more. “Thomas Edison Link on the job,” I told Eve happily. “Mankind has been puttering along, with one foot back in the jungle. The true machine age is around the comer, and with it their pathetic bleat for Prosperity.”

  Eve seemed thoughtful.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have done it, Adam—let Harley become mayor, with all the authority that implies.”

  “The city practically runs itself,” I laughed. “Harley doesn’t know it, but he’s a figurehead, nothing more.”

  “Still, human nature—” Eve said vaguely. But I wasn’t listening. I was inventing an electric light-bulb that gave off no waste heat.

  Number Nine came rushing in, his eye-shutters clicking as his slow-witted brain tried to form words.

  “Adam Link!” he finally stuttered. “They’re having an argument—the humans! Come and see. It’s funny!”

  But it wasn’t humorous at all. Racing to the Administration Building, I saw the scene on the broad stone steps, Harley and his group, at the top, faced a mob below who were hooting and yelling. It was close to midnight. Why weren’t they in bed?

  The two groups seemed about to clash. I stepped between. To back me up, several of my all-night robot police arrived from their stations. Frank Steele came running from the power-house where he was chief engineer, watching over the atomic-power unit.

  The humans eased back, at this show of authority.

  “What is going on?” I demanded.

  “I heard threats all day,” Harley answered. “I kept my men here tonight, to protect our files. That crazy mob down there wants to wreck my office. But I’m mayor!”

  The crowd howled. “We want an election! We want an election!”

  “Silence!” I roared. “I don’t understand.”

  Jed Tomkins stepped forward, from the group below.

  “It’s like this, Adam Link,” he explained, while the others quieted. “You set up Sam Harley as mayor. But all the people don’t like him as mayor. There should have been an election, like everywhere else in this country!”

  Great heavens above! What had I started?

  I DECIDED to put a stop to all the foolishness, here and now.

  “There won’t be a mayor at all,” I stated, “since you humans must wrangle over it. I was your mayor, or patriarch, before. I re-install myself. Sorry, Harley, but you may move out tomorrow—”

  “Yeah?” Harley drew a paper from his inner clothing and waved it. “You signed this, Adam Link. It officially empowers me as mayor, for one year!”

  Yes, I had signed the silly document, without thinking twice. A groan came from the crowd below. Then a shout of rage.

  But my answering shout of rage drowned theirs.

  “Fools!” My amplified voice beat back from the buildings. “I’ll have no more of this. Sam Harley is mayor, since I signed him into that office. But his term is only one year. And he will answer to me for any mismanagement of affairs in Utopia City!”

  My voice changed to pleading.

  “This is all so unnecessary. Please keep your heads. Remember that you are living a better life here than ever before. Keep it so!”

  The logic bit home. The crowd dispersed quietly. Sam Harley ducked back into his office. But I was not so dismayed.

  “Just letting off a little steam,” I said to my robots. “Humans are like that. When there is no trouble, they try to make it, for a bit of excitement. Tomorrow they’ll be as meek as lambs, and laughing over it.”

  “Strange creatures,” Frank Steele mused.

  “They wish to dominate one another. By the way, is Harley our mayor, too? Yesterday he ordered me to make another atomic-power unit, in case this one breaks down. He put it as a suggestion.”

  “Ignore the suggestion,” I said. “Harley is testing his range of authority. This will all straighten out soon.”

  I was annoyed at the way Eve glanced at me, and then up at the stars, questioningly.

  THE stars looked down, questioningly themselves, in the following weeks. There was dissension in Utopia!

  First of all, a strike was called in Factory One. Jed Tomkins had formed a union. The issue was why Sam Harley and his group should loll in their offices, merely giving orders, when others had to work. Fist-fights occurred.

  “Adam, you must do something!” Eve cried. “Utopia is falling apart!”

  “Nonsense, Eve!” I said calmly. “It is a good sign, of a healthy, vigorous people. Anyway, nothing in life is faultlessly smooth. The society from which they come is also a vigorous, sometimes bickering democracy. Be patient. Let them get it out of their systems, this quarreling. Remember Utopian life is still new to them. Let them have a bit of the old life, for comparison. Then they’ll wake as from a bad dream, and all will be well.”

  But I was jolted out of this philosophical calm.

  Number Nine one day displayed a green piece of paper with scrollwork on it. There was an engraving of myself on one side, Harley on the other, and a large numeral One in the comers.

  “Where did you ge
t it?” I rasped.

  “From Sam Harley,” Number Nine said. “I ran an errand for him, and he said, here’s a tip. He called it money. Just think, Adam, with this I can buy a big meal anywhere in town!” He grunted, then. “Wait, I don’t need food! Was Harley laughing at me, like everybody else?”

  Money!

  The word was like a falling mountain. I raced up the Administration steps with such speed that chips of stone flew under my heel-plates. I yanked the door nearly off its hinges.

  Harley sat with stacks of green paper before him, marked in ones, fives, tens and twenties. He looked up.

  “Hello, Adam. Now don’t get excited. Sure this is money, printed by myself. Did you think you could run the city forever without it? Nice theory, working in brotherhood and all that, but you need a fundamental basis for exchange of goods.” He watched me carefully, trying to read my reaction. But I was just unmoving metal to him, as expressionless as a statue.

  “Do you like your picture on it?” he finished lamely.

  “Yes,” I said. Even he was surprised. I let him think that I was flattered over the inscription under my picture—“Adam Link, great founder of Utopia City.”

  “You’re right, Harley,” I said. “We do need currency to keep the economic machinery oiled and going.”

  Let them get that out of their systems, too.

  Harley grinned in pleasure.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere, Adam. Between you and me we’ll get Utopia City on a solid, real foundation. Your other system was only temporary. All the people are realizing that, gradually.”

  I left, grinning also within myself. Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself. That was the way to do it. Let the mayor-ship, spawned from the old system of the outer world, smell to high heaven. When it fell, it would bury with it all future dabbling in “politics.” Then Utopia would take its second wind, and climb the heights.

  After all, the end was worth the means. So the mind of Adam Link reasoned, in this new crisis.

  CHAPTER VI

  Revolt in Utopia!

  SUSPENSE hung like a dark cloud over Utopia City.

  More strikes occurred, against the regime in power. Harley struck back. He instituted “wages” for all labor, and withheld funds from the strikers. He clamped down on the free distribution of food and clothing, deliberately underfeeding the strikers, since they had no money with which to “buy.”

  Jed Tomkins led a mob to the food warehouse, and broke in. Rioting resulted. For twenty-four hours, holding the warehouse, Jed Tomkins set himself up as mayor, by accord of the majority, Harley set fire to the place, driving the short-lived rival government out.

  I called my robots to put out the fire. They waded into the burning building, stamping and beating, and put the final embers out with water. No other building was endangered, as no buildings in Utopia were near one another.

  But I forbade my robots to interfere in the human doings. They looked on in utter amazement.

  “They’ll pull the city down over their ears!” Frank Steele gasped. “All humans are mad!”

  “Adam! Adam!” Eve almost sobbed. “What are you doing? This will end in catastrophe!”

  I was saddened and dismayed myself. The humans were engaged in a tug-of-war for power. They were back at their old game of seeking privileges, not satisfied with just living and enjoying a better life than anywhere on Earth.

  Could it go on? While I had ruled, all was well. Now Utopia was fast becoming a cess-pool of maladjustment and struggle. Even the gardeners, whose duty it had been to keep the city parks in trim, shirked. The city was beginning to look shoddy.

  “But still we must wait patiently,” I told my restless, wondering robots. “They will come to their senses, of their own will. Utopia will rise from these ashes, stronger and better for it.”

  Words of wisdom? Or words of utter folly?

  I KNEW the answer one day, when Frank Steele stalked into my laboratory. “Adam Link, if you don’t do something, I will! Harley today demanded that I make another atomic-power unit, and make a complete set of blueprints for him. I refused. He threatened then to see that no oil was available to the robots, for our body-parts. Now that’s the last straw. These humans must be put in their place.”

  It was the last straw—almost.

  “Easy, Adam!” I told myself as I marched to Harley’s office. “Anger won’t help.”

  I was reasonably calm when I faced Sam Harley, mayor of Utopia City.

  “Sure,” he admitted readily. “I want the blueprints of the atomic-power unit. It’s the greatest thing in commercial history. We’ll patent atomic-power, and make a gigantic fortune. If we handle it right, we can even become the industrial captains of Earth!”

  What madness had spawned in his mind? I answered patiently.

  “But why do that? You are living a good, clean, abundant life. You need nothing. You can’t gain anything by simply amassing a fortune. You can’t live a better life with all the gold on Earth. Don’t you see, Harley?”

  He turned a deaf ear.

  “Don’t be childish, Link. This is the opportunity of the ages. Are we going to sit here like monks in a monastery, when we have the chance to really put Utopia City on the map? Why, we can manufacture the units right here, hold the monopoly, and make this the center of all Earth industry. Now tell me, am I right?”

  “You’re right, as far as that goes,” Frank Steele put in. “Oil, coal, and all present methods of producing power in the world would be obsolete the moment atomic-power was introduced.”

  “There you are!” Harley said triumphantly. “Your own man admits it, Link. Now let’s not waste time. How soon can you have the blueprints for me, Adam?”

  “The day after eternity ends,” I said quietly.

  “But Link, you must—”

  “No!”

  I thundered the word this time, so that the windows rattled.

  “You’ve revealed yourself as completely incompetent, unworthy, and ruthless, Sam Harley. I hereby declare your government illegal. I will resume rule, since you humans are too blind and stupid to rule yourselves properly. I gave you all the leeway I possibly could, hoping you would merit your office. Instead, you’ve cracked the foundations of Utopia. This is my city. I will run it!”

  I had finally put my foot down.

  “The paper you signed!” Harley screeched. “How can you take back rule, against your pledged signature?”

  “By the right of might,” I roared, “the only method you understand. Now get out!”

  To help him, I caught him by the collar and deposited him outside the door. I put my metal fist through the glass-panel on which was his name, as mayor. I kicked his desk to pieces and stamped his papers to shreds.

  Only then did the red rage in my brain clear away.

  I turned as Eve and other robots dashed up.

  “We’re taking over the city,” I commanded. “Destroy all money. Ban all strikes. Police all streets, day and night.

  What a fool I was to let them play at their mad little games, like vicious children. By tomorrow, we will have Utopia again.”

  BUT Utopia was not back the next day.

  Or the next, or next. Was it too late? Had the seed of destruction been sown?

  Harley had left, muttering threats. The threats materialized. Robots were stoned, wherever they appeared. What wild story Harley succeeded in telling, I don’t know. Perhaps that I had threatened to make them slaves. The people, inflamed by the recent release of their darker passions, were fertile ground for any tall tale that stigmatized the robots.

  Curiously, the two human factions that had so recently been bitter antagonists united against us. Robots were the common enemy of mankind.

  I tried to call a meeting in Utopia Square, to lay the ghost. The people refused to congregate, stoning robots sent after them from gangways and windows. I commanded my robots not to touch a human. One death or injury, even by sheerest accident, would brand us forever as Frankenst
eins.

  “What can we do?” Eve cried. “Utopia is crumbling!”

  I groaned, for she was right. My Eden had become Hell. Utopia had become wicked Babylon!

  Desperately, I had my robots take over the power-plant, and shut off power. I would use human methods. I would let them feel the pinch of poverty and want they formerly had.

  With power off, all the machinery in the city stopped. All radios, autos, air-conditioning units, cooking stoves. Life for humans would be unbearable in a few days. Then they would see their folly, and come around to me.

  Instead, they tried leaving. With no vehicles available, some families began tramping out into the desert. They would die before they had gone half-way to safety under the burning sun. I sent my robots to carry them screaming and bawling back into the city. It only added fuel to their hatred.

  The situation had gone from bad to worse. All the human population were our bitter enemies now. All except one.

  Jed Tomkins came limping up to me, thinner, haggard, not even chewing tobacco. “Adam Link, I’m your friend,” he said.

  “I still believe in you. But it’s all a mess now. God, what an awful mess! Harley, after you kicked him out, convinced the others that you had sworn to kill the whole human race-all over Earth! That you and your robots had finally turned Frankenstein. I tried to talk them out of it. Told them it was ridiculous. They beat me—”

  He fell in a dead faint. He was horribly bruised. Eve knelt to attend to him, with a first-aid kit.

  The rest of my robots looked at one another,. sadly,—and angrily. Sad that humans could be so wrong-minded. Angry at being branded as Frankensteins.

  “They cast stones at us!” Frank Steele muttered. “They turned against us, forgetting all we did for them. They blame us for all their self-started troubles. For two cents I’d—”

  “Silence!” I snapped, especially as some of the other robots were muttering, too. “Forgive them, don’t condemn them. There’s still hope for Utopia. Maybe in a few days they’ll listen to reason.”